PowerShell Team
Automating the world one-liner at a time…
Latest posts
Hyphens in Command Names
In my previous blog entry, I talked about how Michael Fisher had blogged his intial impressions about PowerShell. One of the things that Michael did not like was the hyphenated command names. A discussion about the Pros/Cons of hyphens isn't actionable at this point because we've placed our bets and shipped V1. Even if there was a compelling argument that convinced me of the errors of my ways, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Changing would break compatibility. Now that isn't to say, "take it or leave it". No no no no. This is a customizable...
Blog Your Initial PowerShell Experiences
Michael Fisher has just started using PowerShell and is blogging his impressions. You can see them at http://fastdad.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/windows-powershell-10/ . 10,000 thanks Michael! I can't tell you how valuable we find it when people do this! We fully expect that you are going to have to invest a few hours to understand the key PowerShell concepts before you "get it" but if you can tell us about your initial experience/impressions, it helps us tweak things for the people that come after you. We can add some Help, tweak our documentation, add additional A...
Cliff Notes for PowerShell Functions
A PowerShell User (BS) has started a new blog with a very nice,pithy set of examples showing the range of capabilities of PowerShell Functions. Think of this as the Cliff Notes for PowerShell Functions. Check it out at: http://mybsinfo.blogspot.com/2007/01/beginning-and-end-process-to.html Cheers. Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Windows PowerShell/MMC ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShellVisit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
More PowerShell Training Available
Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks (co-authors of the Windows PowerShell: TFM book) will be offering PowerShell Training in the following cities: Check out details and dates at: http://www.scriptingtraining.com/classes.asp If you are intersted in private in-house training, contact them directly. Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Windows PowerShell/Aspen ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShellVisit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
On Scripting Languages
There is an interesting blog entry On Scripting Languages over an the AdminSpotting site. One statement was so absolutely spot-on that I plan on stealing it and using it often, "What the Programmers call 'Dynamic Languages', the Admins call 'Scripting Languages'." Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Windows PowerShell/MMC ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShellVisit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
The Admin Development Model and Send-Snippet
One of the things that motivated us to develop PowerShell was the belief that we (Microsoft) had been doing a poor job supporting the Admin Development Model. All the effort seemed to have gone into treating Admins as GUI-only users or as though they were developers that couldn't handle the complexity of parenthesis. I never quite understood the thinking there. On the one hand, you expect the admin to comprehend the mind-numbing complexity of WMI and ADSI but on the other hand, you invest in a language that allows them to avoid typing the parentheses in an IF statement? ...
Sad State of Blogging Software
The state of blogging software is pretty sad. I must be a harder problem than I can imagine (of course there are other explainations but I'll be gracious and go with that one for now.) I started a entry, got distracted and posted another blog entry. The next day, I came to my computer and noticed that I hadn't finished my original post so I finished it and posted it. The blogging software then posted my entry BEFORE the previous one. Apparently the software uses the datetime that you STARTED the entry (not the datetime you SUBMITTED) for ordering pu...
DIY: Ternary operator
<Changed DYI => DIY. jps> At Microsoft, "to ship is to choose". One of the things we were very disappointed in not being able to ship in V1.0 is a ternary operator. Here is a description of a ternary operator from Wikipedia: Many programming languages that use C-like syntax feature a ternary operator, ; unqualified, "ternary operator" usually refers to this. The operator is used as a shorthand replacement for the if-then-else conditional statement; the general form is condition ? op1 : op2. If condition is true, the statement evaluates as op1; otherwise, it ev...
Use Copy-Property to Make it Easier to Write, Read,and Review Scripts
<Updated script on 1/1/2007 to reflect fixes suggested by James Manning> Dennis Verwiej is doing some great PowerShell work over at his blog Just PowerShell It at http://dverweij.spaces.live.com/ . Recently he posted a blog entry Import Citrix Published Application in which he Imports a CSV file (previously exported) and then calls a few APIs to recreate the published application. If you at the code (in the middle of this blog entry), it the vast bulk of it is a series of lines setting properties before calling the API. I find that this is quite common -...