Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 15 submissions in the queue.
posted by martyb on Monday April 08 2019, @11:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the Powers-Hell? dept.

Microsoft Announces PowerShell 7

Microsoft has just announced PowerShell 7, a new major release that comes only a few days after the company originally introduced version 6.2

And while it naturally makes more sense for the company to roll out PowerShell 6.3 rather than a whole new version 7.0, the company explains in a blog post that it's all as part of the efforts to align the versions of all platforms.

Steve Lee, Principal Software Engineer Manager, PowerShell, explains that Microsoft noticed a growing usage pattern on Linux, but not on Windows.

"Windows usage has not been growing as significantly, surprising given that PowerShell was popularized on the Windows platform," Lee explains. [...] The next version of PowerShell will thus be available on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and the company explains it'll be available with LTS (Long Term Servicing) and non-LTS plans.

Also at ZDNet.

Previously: MS Releases Powershell SDC - to Manage Config for.... Linux
Powershell for Linux
Your wget (and curl) is Broken and Should DIE, GitHubbers Tell Microsoft


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @11:53PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 08 2019, @11:53PM (#826442)

    Dooom! We are all Doomed! Some are even Domed!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:57PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:57PM (#826688)

      Powershell powers hell.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:42PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:42PM (#826777) Journal

        You could have simply said Powershell Powers Windows. Everyone still would have understood what you mint.

        --
        When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by ilsa on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:03AM (12 children)

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:03AM (#826446)

    *nix already provides shell scripting which does the vast majority of glue work you could need. For the fancier stuff, there's tons of other tools ranging from awk to python.

    What benefit could Microsofts "It's a trap" PowerShell provide?

    I suppose its of interest to those that feel Microsoft doesn't siphon enough telemetry data already.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:12AM (#826451)

      Mass fdisk of windows boxes with ease, why else?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:24AM (6 children)

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:24AM (#826482) Journal

      A consistently implemented object oriented scripting language that works across all MS products and doesn't suck to work with. Now they're going to make it work across other platforms? Good stuff.
      .
      Microsoft is not to be trusted of course, but this is a scripting language. Going to be interesting to see how they leverage it in their quest for endless gatekeeping revenue.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
      • (Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:29AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:29AM (#826595) Journal

        A consistently implemented object oriented scripting language that works across all MS products and doesn't suck to work with.

        Yes, please, anytime.

        No, thanks, not PowerShell, it fails the "does not suck" condition.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:23AM (2 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:23AM (#826645) Journal

        On the "does not suck" line (and still work across platforms), I stumbled a while ago on something that may "suck less": IronPython [ironpython.net]. I don't know by direct experience how well it does, but the guy that mentioned it has my respects as a softeng.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:26PM (1 child)

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:26PM (#826679) Homepage Journal

          What is the advantage of IronPython over Python? Its web page [ironpython.net] seems to say it's compatible.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:44PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:44PM (#826685) Journal

            What is the advantage of IronPython over Python?

            Syntax of Python over .NET Framework or Core.
            Which means a tad more sane syntax for an OO language in an interpreted script, with the power of accessing the OS of .NET.
            In my books, makes a less sucking admin scripting language than PowerShell, a language that works on Win, OSX and Linux.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:26PM (1 child)

        by gawdonblue (412) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:26PM (#827143)

        A consistently implemented object oriented scripting language that works

        I'm calling bullshit on an "object oriented scripting language that works". OO is a paradigm that works, barely, in GUIs but sucks for nearly every other application. Unfortunately most people learn it these days as the only way to program, and I have had to deal with idiot contractors trying to implement "proper OO" in things as unsuitable as PL/SQL (hint why not to do this is in its name) and shell scripting.

        Why do some people want to take something simple & reliable and fuck it over with stupid layers of abstraction and complex dependencies?

        Fucking Poetterings everywhere.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:50PM (#828302)

          Devuan's tor daemon requires systemd now, at least on ceres/ascii. Figured this is as good a place to warn as any.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:22AM

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:22AM (#826614) Journal

      What benefit could Microsofts "It's a trap" PowerShell provide?

      The benefits are to M$, not to system administrators or others. There have been ports of zsh and tcsh for around 20 years if not longer. So if it were just a matter of having a scripting language to help with system administration, the obvious choice would be to pull one of those off the shelf and roll it out in the Next Version. But since M$ wouldn't be able to futher its lock-in with either one, both will be ignored. The hard part for M$ is that it is well known that shell scripting is powerful, useful, and even essential to running large numbers of servers which is the market they are clutching at now. The reason that is the hard part, is that M$ has spend many years and lots of money disparraging the shell and now has to somehow turn that around without losing even more credibility among its fan base. The way to do that is to reinvent a square wheel^W^Wtheir own shell.

      Imagine, if standard M$ resellers and Windows monkeys were familiar with zsh or tcsh, then they would not only be immune to the marketeering M$ has been carrying out against the shell, they would also make them less likely to not suggest or even fight an upgrade to FreeBSD or GNU/Linux, since key familiar tools would be there already.

      --
      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:18PM (#826756)

      Why not ? Don't you geeks always claim that Choice is Good(tm) ?

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:45PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:45PM (#826780) Journal

      What benefit could Microsofts "It's a trap" PowerShell provide?

      I cannot believe nobody has answered this one yet.

      The biggest benefit, I can see, is that PowerShell on Linux will require other things conceived in the damnable fires of Redmond. Thus PowerShell on Linux will promote the spread of systemd.

      Can nobody else see that?

      --
      When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeVilla on Friday April 12 2019, @04:07PM

      by DeVilla (5354) on Friday April 12 2019, @04:07PM (#828649)

      My guess, to allow Linux admins who already automate the hell out of their Linux/Unix systems can more reliably automate the remote administration of windows systems via WMI in a heterogeneous environment.

      Just guessing though. Windows was always the odd one out in any server room I saw it in. If it were up to me, I would leave it that way as gentle encouragement to get it out of the server room.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:20AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:20AM (#826455)

    I'm sure Microsoft will be trying to force it down the throats of Powershell 7 users soon enough.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:31PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:31PM (#826984)

      "Running a script means you agree with Powershell starting a 20GB download of Powershell 10, followed by a full installation of Powershell telemetry. Don't worry, your script result will be preserved (uploaded to our servers) and displayed after the 17th reboot of your New Enhanced Powershell 10"

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:31AM (9 children)

    From TFS:

    "Windows usage has not been growing as significantly, surprising given that PowerShell was popularized on the Windows platform," Lee explains. [...] The next version of PowerShell will thus be available on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and the company explains it'll be available with LTS (Long Term Servicing) and non-LTS plans.

    It's not surprising at all. Many folks, especially those in corporate IT are moving many of their servers to Linux. At the same time, many of those folks have libraries of Powershell scripts they use for management, monitoring and maintenence.

    That they should want to use those tools on their Linux boxes, rather than re-implementing their tools in sh, perl, python or other, is perfectly reasonable.

    Years ago, I went the other way myself. I had tools written in sh, perl, etc. and was incredibly happy when I could use those tools *unmodified* on Windows boxes via Cygwin [cygwin.com].

    Surprising? Not even a little bit.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:29AM (8 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:29AM (#826485) Journal

      > Powershell on Linux

      No. Not only no, but fuck no. Microsoft is a creeping cancer, a gelatinous mass whose only instinct is to consume and turn everything it touches into shit.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:42AM (6 children)

        > Powershell on Linux

        No. Not only no, but fuck no. Microsoft is a creeping cancer, a gelatinous mass whose only instinct is to consume and turn everything it touches into shit.

        I wouldn't do so. But that's because my tools are all written in languages supported by Linux. Others, especially corporate IT groups that have been using Microsoft for 30 years, likely have tools written in Powershell, given that it's head and shoulders above anything else provided by Microsoft for scripting.

        Should we discourage such people from moving at least some of their infrastructure to Linux by forcing them to re-implement all their tools in a new language?

        Even if you despise Microsoft, it should be obvious that Powershell on Linux is a win for Linux, not Microsoft. If their corporate customers weren't *demanding* this, Microsoft would never allow their tools to run on Linux -- that jeopardizes their OS sales.

        What's more, as folks who have only done Windows see how much better things are over on the other side, Microsoft will suffer more, not less.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:55AM (2 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:55AM (#826503) Journal

          That idea surely must have occurred to the skinwalkers at MS, and they took the gamble anyway. They're evil, not stupid...so unless their egos are getting in the way and they're truly blind, I can only assume they have good reason to believe things won't turn out that way.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:21AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:21AM (#826533)

            That idea surely must have occurred to the skinwalkers at MS, and they took the gamble anyway. They're evil, not stupid...so unless their egos are getting in the way and they're truly blind, I can only assume they have good reason to believe things won't turn out that way.

            Having worked for Microsoft for several years back at the turn of the century, I can tell you that most MS people are not evil. Greedy, definitely. Shortsighted, most certainly. And there are those who are sociopathic, many of whom have risen through the ranks for just that reason.

            In this case, customers really didn't give them much choice. Just as it's been in their cloud business. Do you really think they'd provide Linux as part of their PaaS offerings if they could helpit? Paying customers, especially the big ones, can get vendors like Microsoft to do all sorts of things that hurts their long-term, because they're focused on meeting their quarterly sales goals. This distorts decision making and often causes folks to act stupidly.

            I suggest applying Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org] more liberally.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:02PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:02PM (#827573)

            they don't have a choice, obviously.

        • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:36AM (2 children)

          by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:36AM (#826619) Journal

          Should we discourage such people from moving at least some of their infrastructure to Linux by forcing them to re-implement all their tools in a new language?

          Except it does not work that way. Remember Mono? The same argument was trotted out for that turd. In a matter of years it was shown that it pulled the other way, causing a small but definite move away from GNU/Linux to Windows development.

          Powershell is not even half-baked. It's just there to keep them from running real tools and to burn through staff time and managment budgets. Letting people use it on GNULinux, FreeBSD, or whatever else will only leave a bad experience with the new systems, slow down the migration, and cause the managers to give up and move back to the perceived comfort of the familar.

          --
          Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:06AM (1 child)

            Powershell is not even half-baked. It's just there to keep them from running real tools and to burn through staff time and managment budgets. Letting people use it on GNULinux, FreeBSD, or whatever else will only leave a bad experience with the new systems, slow down the migration, and cause the managers to give up and move back to the perceived comfort of the familar.

            I hear what you're saying about Mono, and it's a valid point. Those who wanted to write code that could run under .Net on Windows and Mono on *nix likely would get frustrated with the issues around Mono and go (back) to Windows.

            However, Powershell is not a language or a development framework. It's a tool that's less functional than bash and isn't suited to real software development. That's not surprising, as it was introduced and developed as a scripting tool to manage Windows systems, not as a programming language.

            Powershell is actually pretty "mature" (in terms of age) on the Windows platform (it was first released in 2006). It was little used until Microsoft started adding libraries of cmdlets (functions that performed specific tasks) for managing Windows servers and Active Directory.

            Usage did grow in the Windows space, as there were damn few decent scriptable automation tools for AD and Windows system management.

            The functionality of Powershell hasn't progressed much further than that, and, given the vastly better tools for management and administration provided by *nix environments, the only folks who would be interested in using it on *nix are folks who come from the Windows space and have libraries of Powershell tools they wish to use across all their systems. Which, in a Windows-centric environment makes a lot of sense.

            As such, it seems really unlikely that someone just coming to Linux or BSD would take the time to download, build and install Powershell to use over the tools already provided on the platform, unless they already had experience (and tools already written in Powershell) with Powershell.

            And if anyone did any searching around for *nix scripting tools, Powershell probably would be relegated to the seventh or eighth page of search results, if not even deeper.

            As such, I think your analogy to Mono is flawed. But it doesn't much matter what you or I think, and we'll see what happens (or doesn't) with Powershell on *nix. Perhaps you're right.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:24AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:24AM (#827839)

              take the time to download, build and install Powershell to use over the tools already provided on the platform

              PowerShell has a snap package.

              sudo snap install powershell

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:47PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:47PM (#826782) Journal

        and turn everything it touches into shit.

        You could simply call it The Microsoft Touch to use less harsh language.

        It's sort of like The Midas Touch but for Microsoft.

        --
        When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:11AM (2 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:11AM (#826475) Journal

    They could have gone with 6.22, now with DriveSpace!

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:27AM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:27AM (#826484) Journal

      What was that game that DR DOS 7.0 had? Netwars? Something like that.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:34AM

      by Dr Spin (5239) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:34AM (#826577)

      6.22, now with DriveSpace!

      Drivespace and instant removal of USB sticks - at last, genuine proof that "data wants to be free"!

      --
      Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:38AM (16 children)

    by looorg (578) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:38AM (#826491)

    So nobody has anything positive to say about Powershell? Not even anonymous so not to ruin all your tux-cred with the neckbeards?
    I have not tried it yet -- I have not even checked the syntax, but I will admit that it is mildly interesting. It comes with Windows that the corporate overlords supply computers for at work, I don't have to download anything else and if it can easily be used to cobble together some scripts to do boring mundane tasks in the windows environment it might be ok.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:18AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:18AM (#826531)

      So nobody has anything positive to say about Powershell? Not even anonymous so not to ruin all your tux-cred with the neckbeards? [...]

      So nobody has anything positive to say about Powershell? Not even anonymous so not to ruin all your tux-cred with the chestbeards?

      There, FTFY.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by evk on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:36AM (5 children)

        by evk (597) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:36AM (#826618)

        Powershell has this nice idea of shuffling around objects instead of undefined data streams. So if you pipe a directory listing to something, you don't get a bunch of text that you can parse. You get objects with properties. This isn't a bad idea. For some reason they managed to mess up lots of small details which makes it surprisingly compex to to do things you'd expected to be easy.

        In bash I can usually write a one liner without referencing any documentation. For powershell I have a library of one liners for most things I wan't to do. Writing them from memory doesn't work for me.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:45AM (3 children)

          by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:45AM (#826662)

          Powershell has this nice idea of shuffling around objects instead of undefined data streams. So if you pipe a directory listing to something, you don't get a bunch of text that you can parse. You get objects with properties. This isn't a bad idea.

          This. The idea that you have to turn everything into text and then parse it back out is actually the bad idea, and the source of so many bugs and exploits, but it is so ingrained in unix that we just take the breakage as being inevitable.

          I (very)vaguely recall years ago (probably before powershell) something similar was talked about for Guile (the GNU scripting lang) - I haven't kept up with Guile so don't know where it went or if that got implemented. There are GPL problems with it though (see last bit of https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation [gnu.org] ) - basically the whole pipeline becomes one program for GPL purposes, maybe (court will decide...).

          This isn't a bad idea. For some reason they managed to mess up lots of small details which makes it surprisingly compex to to do things you'd expected to be easy.

          That is pretty much Microsoft's MO.

          Thing is, PowerShell's big advantage is also it's biggest drawback here - all the functions all the objects all the properties, they are the .Net ones. IF(F) you are a .Net/C# dev (or maybe VB) then PowerShell is just a bit of slightly twisted syntax to learn, then everything you usually do in C# you can do in a script, and that actually is awesome. On the other hand if you are NOT a .Net/C# dev then you have to learn not just powershell, but the entire .Net framework, for a one line script.

          In bash I can usually write a one liner without referencing any documentation. For powershell I have a library of one liners for most things I wan't to do. Writing them from memory doesn't work for me.

          PowerShell is at least vaguely readable once you've written it. I used to be able to write Perl from memory, but I still had/have a library of one liners for Perl. Now, I dare not run them because I know not what they do...

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:52PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:52PM (#826788)

            if you are NOT a .Net/C# dev then you have to learn not just powershell, but the entire .Net framework, for a one line script.

            I call BS on this.
            I am definitely not a .net or MS gal - Yes, Debian stole my heart of geek. I do have to admin Windows boxes. I do have to patch and maintain and support MS products inc Exchange SharePoint and Skype. You don't need to know .net to use PowerShell. It is useful to know how .net works and what's in it. For most things use the functions available and look up what you need when you need it.

            I've coded in perl bash py CSH Java (yes yes) DOS batch and frankly after using PowerShell for several years I miss it when using Ubuntu or redhat. No, the Linux version of powershell is not up to scratch. Nice try though.

            If not PowerShell then ... What? C#? Ask Microsoft to install python by default on all Windows machines? Install perl everywhere? Do it all in .NET?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:06PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:06PM (#827574)

              "I do have to admin Windows boxes. I do have to patch and maintain and support MS products inc Exchange SharePoint and Skype."

              no. you don't "have to" do anything. have some self respect instead.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:32AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:32AM (#827841)

                Sure.I can starve.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:36PM (#826987)

          Great summation.

          I'm not a Programmer with a capital P, but I do lots of shell scripting as part of system administration tasks; I've worn both linux and windows hats for the last 15 years and I've done extensive scripting on both OSes. Powershell is to me more of a programming language than a shell - it makes what I'm used to being a simple set of operations, turns them into a load of overly verbose commands, and then you have to either spend half your life piping into `get-member` or `select-object -property *` to see if the info you want was actually there or not, or if you maybe need to go and grab from some other object or convert that particular int into a datetime; bash and friends show you everything and provide you with really awesome tools for throwing away or converting stuff you don't want.

          I'm working in a windows team currently but we've been bringing in a lot of linux kit. Lots of the people were agog at having someone who could do "linux scripting", thinking it was some sort of prodigal thing; after showing them a few basic utils and some loops in bash they all took to it remarkably easy, because it's so much more WYSIWYG in nature than futzing around in powershell. bash and other *sh's make the transition from "remember this command" to "put this list of commands in a file and run it" to "wrap those commands in some logic and variables" really simple and really natural in a way I've just never experienced with powershell. Ultimately I don't think I've got an object-oriented brain because despite writing powershell stuff for over ten years now it still doesn't come naturally to me whereas bash scripts just trip off the fingers.

          Conversely, powershell allows you to do certain far more powerful things than you could realistically do in bash (writing REST interface stuff in JSON being a trendy example... but it was whilst porting a powershell script I wrote to linux that I discovered the python requests library which made the script even more bone-headedly simple than powershell) but the barrier to entry is much higher than I feel it is for bash. That said there's a whole bunch of windows utilities with very deep and very useful powershell interfaces that even python on windows can't hold a candle to, but those feel more of a necessary evil to me than a boon of powershell itself.

          My two cents.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:28AM (4 children)

      I've used powershell.

      It's okay. It really doesn't work as well or provide as much power or flexibility as other scripting languages, but for managing Windows and AD, it provides a modicum of utility.

      Please understand that powershell isn't like perl or python. It really has no utility outside sys admin and management functions.

      A good way to think about it is that it's like an inferior sh/bash/csh/etc. with some libraries that make interfacing with proprietary Windows stuff easier.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:48AM (3 children)

        by rob_on_earth (5485) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:48AM (#826596) Homepage

        This this this!

        Powershell is not bash.

        I hated Powershell for so long, because to do things the *nix way is painful(but never impossible). Once I found I had sometime to properly learn Powershell for managing specific Windows/Microsoft processes/systems with very specific goals it just works.

        As with the Apple eco system, the moment you want to go off-road the wheels fall off.

        As with the last big release of Powershell the biggest hurdle will be getting the majority of people to upgrade to make it relevant. I know of many systems that "just work" with old versions of Powershell and no on knows how they work or how to upgrade them.

        With the WSL I try my best to avoid Powershell, but there a few things it does very well in its own domain.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:28AM (#826557)

      I used it once, but don't remember what for. Evidently, it was a forgettable experience.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:14AM (#826610)

      I use power shell every day. I am happy it exists on windows. Far better than VB or c# or perl. It is standard on all windows machines. It works. It does take some getting used to.

      I am a Linux guy working in a windows centric shop. Without power shell this job would suck a lot more.

      Appreciate it for what it is.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheFool on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:14PM

      by TheFool (7105) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:14PM (#826693)

      As a general-purpose shell, I think I'd give it a pass. But it's well suited to performing Windows-related tasks. I use it quite a bit when I'm working on things there.

      Need to write some tests for your .NET or COM+ application (yes, some of us still write these)? Just suck the interface into your script, and now you can poke at it to your heart's content. Want to poke at a driver and look at the WMI data coming out the side? Just a bit of script. Want to spin up a test VM, then execute all those commands on the guest? Sure, just a few more lines of script.

      And there's also the sysadmin side of it, because MS likes to shuffle the GUI around a lot but the commands will stay the same. But I tend not to use it much for that.

      So yeah, good if you're running pretty close to "Windows" and not doing generic things like manipulating files. Definitely worth learning in that case. And it's certainly better than cmd.exe, which is your other out-of-the-box option.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:49PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:49PM (#826784) Journal

      So nobody has anything positive to say about Powershell?

      I have to run Windows, at work. But I've never personally owned a box running Windows. And I am not responsible for maintaining Windows at work. The staff who do that seem to do a good job on a very large fleet.

      So what positive thing can I say about Powershell?

      This: I don't have to use it!

      --
      When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:20AM (1 child)

    by Nerdfest (80) on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:20AM (#826549)

    Anyone else wondering how they noticed those "usage patterns"?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:03PM (#826798)

      You don't think
      No
      You don't believe
      No
      Never
      It couldn't be
      Could they
      Would they
      Actually
      Really
      Just scrape data
      Right from our machine
      Without us knowing
      No
      No no no
      Microsoft would never do that
      Microsoft is your friend
      Windows is the happiest place on earth
      You know this because Microsoft says so
      Disagreeing with Microsoft is treason
      Your clearance is now Blue

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:53AM (#830914)

    Xanax Pills/Actavis /Adderall/Vicodin pills/Oxy's/ oxycodon/Kush/ klonopin/bath salt

    contact us through:
    TEXT (530) 830-2314
    W i c k. R: megameds53
    Website: megamedmstore dot com
    E-mail : megameds@protonmail.com

    Specification:
    Each 5 mL contains: Promethazine hydrochloride 6.25 mg; codeine
    phosphate 10 mg. Alcohol 7%.
    Indication: Cough Suppressant
    Dosage Form: Syrup
    Validity: 2yrs
    Strength 200mg
    Drug : 1622-62-44
    16 oz, 32oz,4oz,8oz

    contact us through:
    TEXT (530) 830-2314
    W i c k. R: megameds53
    Website: megamedmstore dot com
    E-mail : megameds@protonmail.com

    Vicodin pills
    500 mg / 5 mg / Imprint: VICODIN / White Elliptical / Oval
    750 mg / 7.5 mg / Imprint: VICODIN ES / White Elliptical / Oval
    60 mg / 10 mg / Imprint: VICODIN HP / White Elliptical / Oval

    contact us through:
    TEXT (530) 830-2314
    W i c k. R: megameds53
    Website: megamedmstore dot com
    E-mail : megameds@protonmail.com

    Xanax Pills
    2 mg / Imprint: X ANA X 2 / White Rectangle
    1 mg / Imprint: XANAX 1.0 / Blue Elliptical / Ovalcool
    0.25 mg / Imprint: XANAX 0.25 / White Elliptical / Oval
    0.5 mg / Imprint: XANAX 0.5 / Orange Elliptical / Oval
    3 mg / Imprint: X 3 / Green Three-sided
    1 mg / Imprint: X 1 / Yellow Four-sided
    2 mg / Imprint: X 2 / Blue Round
    0.5 mg / Imprint: X 0.5 / White Five-sided

    Oxycontin 20mg
    Oxycontin 40mg
    Oxycontin 80mg

    Valium 2mg/90tabs
    Valium 5mg/90tabs

    Percocet 5-325mg brand name 100 tab (Blue Tablet)
    Percocet 7.5-325mg brand name 100 tab
    Percocet 10-325mg brand name 100tab (Yellow Tablet)

    contact us through:
    TEXT (530) 830-2314
    W i c k. R: megameds53
    Website: megamedmstore dot com
    E-mail : megameds@protonmail.com

    Winstrol Depot 50 Amples
    Winstrol Depot 100 Amples
    British Dispensary Dianabol 5mg 1000 Tabs
    Winstrol Stanozolol Oral 5mg 1000 Tabs

    contact us through:
    TEXT (530) 830-2314
    W i c k. R: megameds53
    Website: megamedmstore dot com
    E-mail : megameds@protonmail.com

    Anavar/Anadrol 50mg 60 Tabs

    Sinaloa Kush
    Strawberry Kush
    OG Kush

    MDMA Crystals
    XTC (85% MDMA 15% Caffeine) Hard Pressed Non Crumbly

    Gray QDance Pills & Red Defcons
    Gray QDance Pills & Red Defcons

    *Green Crack::::::::::::: Grade: AA
    *sour Diesel :::::::::::::::Grade: A+ Top Shelf
    *Grand Daddy Purple ::::Grade: A
    *Sensi Star x ak47 :::::::Grade: AAA
    *Afghan Kush :::::::::::::Grade: A
    *Northern Lights #5 ::::::Grade: A+
    *Lemon drop:::::::::::::::Grade: A+
    *Purple Kush:::::::::::::::Grade:A+ Top Shelf
    *OG Kush ::::::::::::::::::Grade:A++ Top Shelf
    *purple-urkle::::::::::::::Grade: A-

(1)