Worst Usability Example

To create a Windows service from the command line, one would normally use the sc command. I wasted almost half an hour today while settings Subversion's svnserve service. So I thought I had better document my ordeal.

To start with, sc has the worst command line syntax that I have seen in my entire life as a software developer. The syntax to create a service for Subversion, type:

sc create svn binPath= "c:\subversion\bin\svnserve.exe -r c:\repo" start= auto DisplayName= "Subversion Server" depend= Tcpip

Notice there is whitespace after the "=" character? No, it's not "start=auto". If you type that, sc will print out the command line syntax and the service is not created. Add in the space, you will have svnserve running as a Windows service.

Can someone explain why the syntax is so weird?