basic usability

[zenspider]

I'm having so many problems with irb. Basic usability issues. For example, if your config includes:

IRB.conf[:PROMPT_MODE] = :SIMPLE

and you type help, you literally can't tell that you've just entered ri mode.

• help should help.

ri should ri.
show_doc just shouldn't be.

cwws and chws are terribly named.
Consider cd and... I dunno, pwd?

chws doesn't accept .. and I can't figure out how to get out.

chws doesn't accept -h.

• show_cmds doesn't detail anything. There's no way to see help for a command.

• show_cmds doesn't show any of the aliases.

• show_source doesn't seem to be able to find ANY source for anything defined in the irb session.

That's 10 minutes worth of investigation prompted by @st0012 saying this thing was ready and should go in our Gemfiles. I just don't think it is ready. I used to LOVE irb and resisted using pry for years, but ever since the irb overhaul, I have found it to be very unusable.

Please sit down with someone unfamiliar with irb and watch them fire it up and try to use it. Every friction point, every confusion, every broken expectation should be written up as an issue, prioritized, and fixed.