Well, that didn't take long: within a week of applause for Microsoft's decision to open-source PowerShell, a comment-war has broken out over
curlandwget.For those not familiar with these commands: they're open source command line tools for fetching Internet content without a browser. Apart from obvious applications like downloading whole sites (for example as backup), they're also under the hood for a lot of other toolsets (an example the author is familiar with – GIS tools use
curland/orwgetto fetch maps from Web services).For some reason, Microsoft's team decided to put aliases for
curlandwgetin Windows PowerShell – but, as this thread begins, those aliases don't delivercurlandwgetfunctionality.The pull request says the aliases should be spiked: "They block use of the commonly used command line tools without providing even an attempt to offer the same functionality. They serve no purpose for PowerShell users but cause confusion and problems to existing
curlandwgetusers."
-- submitted from IRC
Related Stories
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
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday August 23 2016, @11:19AM
This is a very annoying problem when it happens because as far as I can tell, in PS, there's no way to walk the PATH to find the actual binary to override the alias. The last time I needed to work with wget in a PowerShell script, I had to hardcode in the path to wget vs just letting it be found on the path. There are a bunch of other aliases in powershell, but off the top of my head, only wget and curl are actual commands vs. shell functionality.
Still always moving
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jimshatt on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:49PM
PS: Muhuhuhahaha
(Score: 3, Interesting) by martyb on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:56PM
I do not have any experience with PowerShell, but noticed in the discussion thread a couple of possible work-arounds.
Work-around #1: user jpsnover [github.com] suggfested this work-around [github.com]:
Work-around #2: User kilasuit [github.com] suggested this workaround [github.com]:
Can anyone here confirm?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:38PM
Yes well I have used PowerShell, and the correct solution if you insist on using wget instead of System.Net.WebClient is to bundle your own copy of wget.exe with your script and invoke it explicitly.
.\wget.exe
See? Is that so fucking hard?
Oh shit no, now I'm going to be burned at the stake by penguin loving linux scum because I've used PowerShell.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:44PM
You refer to us as "penguin loving linux scum" and then are surprised when people take offense? Shocking news: when you're rude to people they're often rude back.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:53PM
Two points:
(2)Why do you feel the overwhelming urge to join an exclusive club that uses only Linux? I use Linux and Windows equally because I'm not a goddamned bigoted asshole like so many poser geeks who are too fucking stupid to use more than one thing.
(2) Dude bro like where's my fucking tolerance and shit? Why nerds gotta be hating on nerds? Don't you get enough abuse from normals already?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:11PM
Windows is great for some things, like developing GUI desktop applications that run only on Windows.
The second thing it's good for is...
Let me think about that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:39PM
Getting viruses! Oh you mean GOOD things it's good at. I'll get back to you
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:07PM
It's good for booting up on a new machine so you can download a Linux or BSD iso and burn it. Give credit where credit is due :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:10PM
If we're going to be fair, the asshole has a point. There is a way to make it work, and it is better (from a certain point of view) to be able to use as many tools and platforms as possible to get the job done. I can appreciate that attitude of agnosticism, although he shrugged it off just as fast as he put it on.
What I can't appreciate is that Microsoft attempted to bridge the gap, and then fucked it all up. There isn't a reason to go through the hoops of explicitly calling wget at all. Microsoft should have implemented both of those programs fully, with special attention at making it as consistent with Linux use as possible.
Of course, I take all of that with a grain of salt giving the inconsistencies between same named binaries within Linux and BSD platforms too. A lot of times those are simply missing flags, but that is different behavior on different platforms. Honestly, I wouldn't of singled out Microsoft at all if I find the problem, because it exists elsewhere outside of Microsoft.
They're trying at least. It's a moot point of course with everything else going on (TELEMETRY FUCK YOU!!). What's ironic is that somebody suggested to me that I use Powershell for a mini-project and I told them I wasn't willing to invest the time to figure out all the differences and eccentricities when I could be focusing on learning BSD better, and working with anti-MS platforms like ReactOS and PCBSD. Both wget and curl would have fucked me up for a few minutes.
Ultimately, working with Microsoft at all will become self-defeating IMHO. It's not like they're going in a different direction, but full steam ahead to Walled Garden'd telemetry and full NSA/FBI surveillance of all users, all the time. Shit, even Apple is putting up more of a fight against the government and loss of privacy.
Interesting Times, but if you're using PowerShell and committed to the Windows platform, you've already bent over and accepted to the big ol' lubed up M I C R O S O F T and a complete utter lack of privacy, control, and IMHO, dignity. Agnosticism left the building after Microsoft started forcefully backporting telemetry and removing individual patches.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:08PM
I agree that if Microsoft had properly implemented wget and curl, with rigorous compatibility testing, there would be no issue. Anyone should be able to implement those commands.
The problem is that they couldn't be bothered doing that.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:33PM
pedant alert:
i would not have...
vs
i would not of...
sorry, the fingers move of their own volition sometimes...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:46PM
Don't apologize! :)
I wish that my grammer were better all the time ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday August 27 2016, @09:05PM
i thank a couple online denizens who corrected my misuse of 'soupcon' and misspelling of 'smorgasbord'...
a lot of obvious stuff just goes by in the stream (not worth the effort to 'correct' their/there/they're, etc mixups), but some of them catch the eye...
later, ed ed ed...
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday August 24 2016, @12:46AM
I'll happily admit to fornicating with flightless birds (in a grimy way) If it means I don't have to put up with Windows dragging down the computing paradigm to the lowest common idiot.
Here, beaky, it's time for our afternoon tryst...
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:26PM
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:50PM
Clippy: It looks like you are trying to work around Microsoft's deliberately broken curl and wget. Would you like me to install Windows 10 for you? Please do any of the following to install Windows 10: Click Yes, No, Cancel, the X in the title bar, or pull the power cord from the wall outlet to have Windows 10 conveniently installed on the next reboot.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday August 23 2016, @11:24AM
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/pull/1901 [github.com]
For your reading pleasure
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:42PM
I thought this story was a dupe.
But no, it is just a comment promoted into a story [soylentnews.org].
I guess technically, that is not even true, since the github link was added in the comments.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sendafiolorkar on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:27PM
People keep using shity and broken software and getting surprised that the software is shity and broken.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:53PM
Like I was wondering in the other thread, how much pain will people tolerate? Because that's how much pain Micros~1 is going to apply. If we get lucky, they'll go too far.
(Score: 3, Informative) by redneckmother on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:24PM
Too late... as far as I'm concerned, they went too far a couple of decades ago (that's when I cut those apron strings).
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:35PM
This would be the "embrace" portion of the triptych. Duplicate the simple functionality and it will suffice.
What happens next? Hackers; being interested types; duly read the documentation and outline the anomalies in bug reports. In the meantime, these hackers alter their applications to work within the new constraints.
The next chapter is "extend". Microsoft "listens to developers" and subsequently improves functionality - and (oh, thankfully!) - there is now no need to directly use wget or curl. (Although if you really need to use the "real deal", there is a knowledge base article available that might; in theory; do what was initially required.)
Finally there will be "extinguish". But we always knew that was coming.
The only rational response is to reject Microsoft's offering by ignoring it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:42PM
shitty even
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:32PM
In all fairness, anybody writing a script to run on other systems would be checking the executable exists using `which` and assigning the full path to a variable... unless that is they are a complete moron!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:29PM
Bash is Windows. Shell is Windows. All is Windows. We are Windows. Windows is all. Windows is Shell. Windows is Bash. Bash is not bash. Windows is bash. Shell is not shell. Windows is shell. All are Windows. We are Windows. Windows is all. We are Windows. Windows is all. Shell is Windows. Bash is Windows. Obey Windows. All are Windows. We are Windows. All are Windows. All obey. We are all. All will obey.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:09PM
One of us!
One of us!
One of us!
And...
Resistance is futile...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:13PM
Part of the ship! Part of the crew! Part of the ship! Part of the crew! Part of the ship! Part of the crew! Part of the ship! Part of the crew!
also
You will be upgraded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:12PM
Ivan, please go and "bear hug" Satan Nutella for me... embrace and extinguish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:24PM
As Gaaark alluded to, it is more like:
We are Windows. Lower your shields and surrender your computer. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your OS will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:42PM
I'm not finding enough details here but what commands are aliased to provide said functionality? And it sounds like are the alias' are hard coded and changing them would break things which is absurd. Then again...
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:27PM
When I started using powershell on windows servers a few years ago and I could not install cygwin, this functionality was heaven sent.
Both curl and wget are aliased to invoke-webrequest which I had no idea existed. It takes none of the parameters that real curl or wget want but just typing
curl http://www.google.com [google.com]
wget http://www.google.com [google.com]
iwr http://www.google.com [google.com]
invoke-webrequest http://www.google.com [google.com]
all download the google home page
Which is all well and good except what you actually see on screen it a snip it of n bytes(500ish) you have to request the rawdata property of the returned object to see all the bytes.
It is good, bad and ugly but is only useful on Windows.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:12PM
Went to see headshots of metrosexual brogrammers, was not disappointed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:28PM
Interesting problem.
Best case: Microsoft is stuck with what turned out to be a stupid thing that a bunch of it's customers depend on.
Worst case: Microsoft did an intentional Embrace, Extend and Extinguish and got called on it.
There are definitely at least 2 separate user camps here. Both need to be supported.
Possible way out:
A unix shell has a PATH variable to specify the order to look for finding the command to execute.
These internal shell aliases bypass this mechanism.
Perhaps they should add an explicit 'ALIAS' to the path string so the user can pick the search order.
PATH = /usr/bin:ALIAS works the Linux way
PATH = ALIAS:/usr/bin works the Microsoft way
If their corporate governance is actually worth anything it should do two things;
1) prevent killing working things for current paying customers.
2) let their RFC process provide a broader community review of if this (or something else) is a good idea BEFORE they get stuck with it.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:12PM
Apparently, this is only an issue on Windows, not on Unix/Linux [github.com] (unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to reference specific comments in the discussion thread. :( ) :
The issue with these aliases on Unix/Linux is discussed here [github.com].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:20PM
As an aside, using bash, perl, python and/or a myriad of other tools on Windows systems creates portable tools which can run, unmodified, pretty much everywhere.
I guess the use case for a cross-platform powershell is if you only know powershell and/or have a large library of PS scripts.
However, powershell (IMHO) is pretty painful to use compared with other scripting languages. Better to learn Perl or Python, and shell (Bourne, Korn, C or other), methinks.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:07PM
PowerShell's programming model is better than bash but its got a fundamental design flaw that makes it unpleasant to work with.
Basically, in PS land, every cmdlet is an object. So I can call for a NS lookup, and then work with that as an object; for scripting that's far better cleaner than shell scripts (and PowerShell is essentially a bash alternative on Windows). The problem is the pipeline. If you don't catch objects, they can "leak". Basically, if I do "Resolve-DNSName" or something similar, and don't catch the return code, the object leaks into the pipeline, and can be retrieved by something completely unrelated and unexpectedly. The behavior is incredibly uninutive when it happens, and its gotten me to the point that I have to catch everything to make sure the pipeline is pristine in all cases.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @01:23AM
there doesn't seem to be a way to reference specific comments in the discussion thread
#issuecomment-241046950 [github.com]
Mark the text where you think the good stuff might be hiding within the page's source code.
Right click.
Click View Selection Source.
Look for _id= or _name= (where _ is a whitespace).
Append a crunch|hash mark|number symbol|pound sign to the URL.
Mark what is in the quote marks following the tag mentioned above and paste it at the end of the URL.
N.B. I use SeaMonkey.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:23AM
Thanks!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:05AM
It's easier than that. If you look at a comment's heading, it says something like "$NAME commented $TIME ago", right? The $TIME portion of that heading is a link to that specific comment.
It just has absolutely no visual indication that it's a link because Github's designers all became pants-on-head retarded at some point. Which is also why everything on Github is bold for me in Linux, because they did a terrible hackjob attempt at using "system fonts" by default, and as a result, it defaults to using Roboto because I happen to have it installed...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday August 24 2016, @08:06AM
Even better! Thank you kindly, sir or madam.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Funny) by NotSanguine on Wednesday August 24 2016, @08:09AM
It's better because now I know how to link to specific comments. But you're right, the design (if you can call it that) is quite poor.
How does that old saw go again? "I may be slow, but my work is poor." Yes, I think that's it.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday August 24 2016, @12:37PM
Glad I could help.
Seems like lately Github's website is more trouble than it's worth. Some random things that come to mind:
• The poorly displayed comment links that require treating the webpage like an old-style adventure game where you blindly hover over anything that might be interesting in the hopes of finding the macguffin needed to continue
• Huge waste of space on comments for the damn +1 emoji bullshit
• If you're viewing a repository, the search box now searches within the repository, with no clear way to search site-wide again. Know how you do it? You hit backspace on the empty search box... How's that for fucking stupid, hidden, magic UI bullshit?
• The Roboto thing I mentioned, where it tries to use system fonts and ends up looking weird. The actual problem is that the CSS used for text now is -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol";, in a misguided attempt to use system-default fonts instead of browser-defaults. So, if you happen to have a font installed that's from a different system that's closer to the head of the list, you get that font. Here's what it looks like, [imgur.com] along with my Stylish tweak to make it tolerable again on my system.
Probably more, but I usually interact with github through git on the CLI, thankfully. They really went all-in on the "social" bullshit and seem to be determined to make the site as uncluttered and usable as Facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:58PM
Yeah, the method I described -should- work, even on pages when there is no obvious thing to click (in this case, the date within each post).
We should note here that some page "developers"[1] don't understand the concept of accessibility[2] and especially not the concept of a #FragmentIdentifier.
In the article which spawned one of my recent submissions [soylentnews.org] I found one of those.
In those cases, I add a critique to the URL [insidehighered.com]
(and the editors typically remove those).
[1] ...and a bunch of those "developers" just reuse someone else's page boilerplate without understanding what the tags within it do.
[2] Folks who are blind and use a text-to-audio screenreader as well as folks who use a text-only browser really hate those poorly-educated guys.
(The very first thing on any page that doesn't start its main content at the very top of the page should be a Jump to content link.)
Note: I have special emotions for the guys who include one of those--and don't check to see that it actually WORKS.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @07:30AM
Worst of both worlds... The people wanting to use Powershell on Windows are those already familiar with Powershell, and they will expect it to behave like the Windows version. Everybody else prefers bash anyway.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday August 24 2016, @08:29AM
Just to recap: on linux, on the latest pre-release build (6.0.0-alpha.9) there is no collision between any unix tools and PS aliases. The right thing on linux is already done. This change is windows-only.
Worst of both worlds... The people wanting to use Powershell on Windows are those already familiar with Powershell, and they will expect it to behave like the Windows version. Everybody else prefers bash anyway.
As you mentioned, the folks using Powershell on Windows have been using the 'curl' and 'wget' aliases for many years, so presumably those people *expect* those aliases to call the Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet.
However, the potential solutions being bandied about in the Github discussion thread are mostly along the lines of giving folks the option to disable aliases which have collisions with *nix style utilities rather than doing away with the aliases altogether. Powershell defaulting to parsing aliases in scripts is (IMHO) a poor idea, and Microsoft agrees. In fact, they strongly recommend that users do *not* use aliases in scripts, and call the corresponding cmdlets directly instead.
Those who are used to *nix style functionality (whether on Linux/Unix or with Cygwin/MKS/native tools on Windows) are coming late to the game and are flabbergasted at the perceived arrogance of the Powershell devs aliasing their own, inferior cmdlet to those well-known names.
You are correct in that most of us prefer Bash anyway, on Windows or Unix/Linux. Well, at least I do.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:37PM
Disappointing.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:45PM
Where's "github is ghey and if you use github you are ghey" ?
Oh there it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:20PM
WTF would you use then? sourceforge? lmfao!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:15PM
Microsoft turned their sh*t up to 11. This is a minor nuisance in comparison.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Username on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:08PM
I’m not sure if wget in powershell calls inet or not but i’d like to take this opportunity to gripe about inet anyway, especially how version 11 of inet takes 10x longer to get anything than previous versions. I don’t know if I’m missing some new parameter, or if it’s some kind of energy/resource saving thing. It’s unacceptable to turn a one hour operation into a 10 hour one just by having a single different library. This kinda crap is why people bundle libraries.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:13PM
One of the Register commentors linked to the korn shell story, but their server must be on a residential connection or something.
Here is the link [archive.org] that does not say archive.org is hitting the site too quickly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:19PM
I once expected that MS would die with a whimper once the general population became computer literate, but that doesn't seem to be happening. If anything computer literacy is become less common, not more. Give it another generation and everything will be run by computers that no one living understands well enough to fix when they break.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?