Kafka ACL table should print the mapped values instead of directly printing the enums from the backend

[craicoverflow]

For the ACL CRUD commands we have mapped all enums from permission, operation, resource type to lower case forms. There are a couple of reasons making the user enter uppercase values is not preferred and we should try to avoid this:

• It is more difficult to type, as the user must turn on CAPS LOCK.
• It is more difficult to read, as uppercase letters are more uniform and harder to tell apart.

Current output:

  PRINCIPAL (6)    PERMISSION   OPERATION          DESCRIPTION                 
 ---------------- ------------ ------------------ ---------------------------- 
  All accounts     ALLOW        DESCRIBE_CONFIGS   TOPIC is "*"                
  All accounts     ALLOW        DESCRIBE           TOPIC is "*"               

Preferred output:

  PRINCIPAL (6)    PERMISSION   OPERATION          DESCRIPTION                 
 ---------------- ------------ ------------------ ---------------------------- 
  All accounts     allow        describe-configs   topic is "*"                
  All accounts     allow        describe           topic is "*"               

[wtrocki]

I find this opinionated. If we bring opinions I personally like the current version as it is mapping to exact values in Kafka ACL
Using enums has numerous advantages related to maintenance and simplicity

[craicoverflow]

If we bring opinions I personally like the current version as it is mapping to exact values in Kafka ACL

The real ACL keys from Kafka are different - describe_configs is output as DESCRIBE_CONFIGS by the Kafka Admin API, so it is not the case that we are varying from Kafka core in any way.

UX research has shown that uppercase is much harder to read as the characters are very similar - this means our table would be more difficult to read. See this article which explains it in detail.

The acl create and acl delete commands accept the mapped, lowercase values for two reasons:

• It is quicker to type, as the user does not need to switch to caps
• It ensures that we are staying true to the style guide of the CLI - which is: lowercase kebab-case for all commands and flags.

The values from the table should match those the user is expected to enter in the CRUD commands.

Easier maintenance should not come at the cost of the chance of a better user experience.

[craicoverflow]

Taking this one now.

[wtrocki]

Should we wait for fixing this before release?

[craicoverflow]

No, it's fine, there are several places that need to be updated for this.