Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#11

Post by polotics » Sun, May 08, 2022, 10:55 AM UTC

sterlind wrote: post #9

einpoklum wrote: post #3

Question for the PowerShell afficionados: Do you consider PowerShell to be "something we can count on to exist on Windows systems, in the absence of Bourne-like shells" - or is it "a superior alternative to Bourne shells which only got traction on Windows because Bourne is too deeply embedded in the Unix world"?

the latter, though I may have some Stockholm syndrome. killer features: * objects are streamed, not text. I look upon sed and awk and their ilk as stone knives and bear skins. why not just dot into fields? * first-class interaction with libraries. I can import managed DLLs and call their methods. I don't have to build weird little one-off tools or expose porcelain. I can get at everything, it's profoundly hackable in…

Cygwin has been a reliable features-complete alternative IMHO

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#12

Post by oaiey » Sun, May 08, 2022, 10:58 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #3

Question for the PowerShell afficionados: Do you consider PowerShell to be "something we can count on to exist on Windows systems, in the absence of Bourne-like shells" - or is it "a superior alternative to Bourne shells which only got traction on Windows because Bourne is too deeply embedded in the Unix world"?

Bash as a shell is not so outstanding. It is the gnu tools and the other command line first Landscape. So bash on windows can never fly because these tools are not natively present (cygwin and friends are just awkward).

So Powershell (and the new terminal) gives us this whole package with its build-in, service and windows provided commandlets.

Consequently: bash will never beat PS on Windows except when someone provided a gnu tools and hundreds of other command line tools for windows.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#13

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, May 08, 2022, 10:59 AM UTC

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1523010444570419200.html

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#14

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:00 AM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #6

omega3 wrote: post #5

I find this twitter thread frustrating. Q: What was the justification for the demotion? What became of the leaders that made that decision? A: It was stranger than you can possibly imagine I think the gist of the story is that he was assigned to work on X but worked on Y instead. Notwithstanding how great Y idea turned out to be it seems he was demoted for insubordination?

Twitter threads are frustrating no matter the content, after two replies I get a banner that blocks me from reading until I register. Not gonna happen.

This particular "thread" is simply two tweets.

There's no explanation of why the demotion occurred, by whom, for what reason, when rescinded, etc., etc.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#15

Post by oaiey » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:00 AM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #12

einpoklum wrote: post #3

Question for the PowerShell afficionados: Do you consider PowerShell to be "something we can count on to exist on Windows systems, in the absence of Bourne-like shells" - or is it "a superior alternative to Bourne shells which only got traction on Windows because Bourne is too deeply embedded in the Unix world"?

Bash as a shell is not so outstanding. It is the gnu tools and the other command line first Landscape. So bash on windows can never fly because these tools are not natively present (cygwin and friends are just awkward). So Powershell (and the new terminal) gives us this whole package with its build-in, service and windows provided commandlets. Consequently: bash will never beat PS on Windows except when someone provi…

On the topic of Powershell on Linux I think the story there could be different, however Powershell violates the core philosophy of Linux so hard (mit vs. GPL, pipe-and-filter vs loaded DLLs, ...) that Powershell will never be something integral and natural fitting there.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#16

Post by AndrewDucker » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:05 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #3

Question for the PowerShell afficionados: Do you consider PowerShell to be "something we can count on to exist on Windows systems, in the absence of Bourne-like shells" - or is it "a superior alternative to Bourne shells which only got traction on Windows because Bourne is too deeply embedded in the Unix world"?

Dealing with objects rather than strings and parameter autocompletion give massively better discoverability than other shells I've used.

Being able to use all of the .Net classes trivially is also staggeringly useful.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#17

Post by jrsj » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:08 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #3

Question for the PowerShell afficionados: Do you consider PowerShell to be "something we can count on to exist on Windows systems, in the absence of Bourne-like shells" - or is it "a superior alternative to Bourne shells which only got traction on Windows because Bourne is too deeply embedded in the Unix world"?

(Not an aficionado) I feel like it is superior in many ways, but the syntax and case sensitivity have always been a barrier for me. It’s still worth it though when it’s the right tool. I don’t do Windows stuff often though so it’s always jarring coming back to it from bash.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#18

Post by mjburgess » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:17 AM UTC

I've often wondered why powershell hasnt taken off on linux/mac. I'd guess MS would have a good case for investing there (given, eg., linux usage on azure).

Particularly in the recent history of "every day, another shell" on linux/mac. Powershell seems to solve the problem being resolved in rust,go,scala,... over-and-over. Why not just use that?

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#19

Post by tjoff » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:28 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #14

tjoff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter threads are frustrating no matter the content, after two replies I get a banner that blocks me from reading until I register. Not gonna happen.

This particular "thread" is simply two tweets. There's no explanation of why the demotion occurred, by whom, for what reason, when rescinded, etc., etc.

Ok, even that was obfuscated for me.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#20

Post by raverbashing » Sun, May 08, 2022, 11:29 AM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #8

Arnavion wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Neither? It's a superior alternative to cmd.exe. bash has never been a serious contender for Windows. Before PS you always wrote .bat scripts for cmd.exe (or .vbs for cscript.exe if you were really depraved). Nobody except Linux-first FOSS authors would expect Windows users to have cygwin / msys / mingw32 installed. PS gave us a saner choice, though we would still usually bundle it with a .bat wrapper, just to a)…

But instead of coming up with PS, it would have been pretty straightforward to just install bash on Windows. Someone chose to go the PS way rather than the bash way. My question is what the reason was for making this choice. > Nobody except Linux-first FOSS authors Bourne shell and its predecessors and successors are traditional and common on most computer systems since the early 1970s (starting with the Thompson she…

Let's be real honest here, bash sucks.

"common on most computer systems since the early 1970s" yes, that's exactly the problem, it still thinks spaces on filenames are an "exception", just as a start. It knows about lines but barely.

PS has native json support.