the command to create a server is named "create-client"

[zooko]

I just had to explain to someone on the phone that the way to create a server is to run the command 'create-client'.

Maybe we should rename that command to 'create-node'? It is used for creating clients, storage servers, and web gateways, but not for creating introducers. Alternately I suppose we could split it into several commands: 'create-client', 'create-storage-server', 'create-web-gateway'?

[warner]

My plan was to rename it 'create', and then add some options to specify which services you want the new node to provide. Since we want to do away with the Introducer eventually, I plan to retain 'create-introducer' as a separate command (rather than add 'tahoe create --introducer' and then get rid of it again later). The default node will have client functionality (i.e. the ability to upload and download files), a webapi server, and maybe storage functionality (I forget if we currently default to --with-storage or --no-storage).

But yeah, 'create-node' has the benefits of

• being longer, since creating a new client/server node is an infrequent operation and thus, according to Zipf's Law, deserves a longer name
• being harder to interpret as intended for creating other things, like directories, or files

I'm always on the fence as to what word to use for this client node thingy of ours. In a distributed-system sense, "node" is the right word: it's just one node out of many. If you think of things in asymmetric terms and really want to emphasize the difference between "clients" and "servers", then the node you're creating might have one or both features: sometimes you are creating a client-only node, sometimes a server-only node, and (more commonly) you are creating something that can do both. "node" has the bad quality of also being the most convenient term for elements of the file/directory DAG structure, but there we usually lean towards the longer terms "filenode" and "dirnode" (and only use the unqualified term when we need a plural: "nodes" instead of "filenodes/dirnodes" or "file/directory nodes").

So, I don't know what's the best term for the "instance of the Tahoe program (with working directory and saved state and a persistent nodeid) that you're creating for eventual launch with 'tahoe start'" thingy which would serve as the direct object in "tahoe create-XYZ".

[davidsarah]

Add create-node CLI command, and make create-client equivalent to create-node --no-storage (fixes #760)

[zooko]

Looks good! Thank you. Applied as 87f1bae7fe715da1.