oclif VS Knex

oclif is a library that helps create CLI applications using Node.js. If you are using a different programming language, search for a suitable library.

It is possible, oclif is a full featured framework produced by Salesforce and is used for the Salesforce and Heroku CLI applications. I have used oclif and pkg to bundle a standalone, though I was focused on MacOS not Windows. Any node application should work with pkg, though.

oClif.io

Check out https://oclif.io/

Interesting. TIL about the Open CLI framework that they all seem to be moving to: https://oclif.io/

https://oclif.io is a tool that helps you build command line tools with node. You can use it to help you create an executable for Linux, max, or windows that you can invoke from the command line.

Oclif to quickly click together CLI tools for kicking off and monitoring crawls, generating reports, etc.

During the second Ably Innovation Days, I started working on specifications for an Ably CLI. After the first day Phil and I started with a prototype based on oclif. We managed to create a working prototype in a day that lists Ably apps, and creates a new Ably app. This project is still Work In Progress. Once the CLI is in a releasable state, I'll create some content around this.

A command-line interface, often referred to as a CLI, is a program that allows users to type instructions and interact with a script that processes the input and produces an output. Node.js has a lot of packages that allows you to build CLIs, like args, minimist, and oclif.

Knex.js

AdonisJS core team has created/maintains Lucid. It is a SQL query builder, and an Active Record ORM built on top of Knex.

Now, why not use an ORM? I've seen performance issues too many times with ORMs. I prefer writing my own SQL to avoid surprises. After all, I know the database schema and writing code for a specific purpose very often leads to better performance than generic code. ORMs have to support all kinds of database schemas. I only have to support mine. Having successfully used Knex.js in NodeJS (a popular query builder) in the past, I know writing SQL queries myself is not hard and provides very good performance.

Given the dynamic nature of the schema, we employ Knex, a query builder, for database access.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/knex - 779 issues

# related: https://github.com/knex/knex/issues/2354

This article will be focused on a security issue that I found in Knex and how to mitigate it, but I'll also talk briefly about the social aspects of this problem.

SQL is an old, irregular language to work with, but it is better known than HCL and SQL already has it's own Pulumi/CDK in the form of every ORM with introspection (like Javascript's Prisma, Python's Django, Go's XO etc) and QueryBuilder (LINQ, Knex, etc) in whatever programming language you prefer. You probably already know it.