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Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

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Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#141

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?

I don't have any experience with iOS, and haven't scripted in anger in powershell.

Linux and its ecosystem evolved alongside bash. If somebody tried to make a thing, and said thing was difficult to script with bash, nobody used the thing. They would say it's "hard to use". So system facilities and applications that don't script well with a shell script like bash (or csh or zsh to tcsh...) never survived.

Basically, everything in linux automation is a nail, and bash is a very good hammer. DOS/Windows has had .bat scripts forever, which is not a particularly good hammer, but more importantly, Windows automation is very much not-nail like. You need a wrench and a socket set for many tasks, and CMD simply doesn't do that very well. (neither does bash for that matter) So powershell is a godsend. Meanwhile, us linux folks are sitting here with our hammer and all of our nails, and ... well, while I see that sometimes, it's maaaaybe nice to have a screwdriver as well, I certainly don't see the need for powershell.

> Particularly in the recent history of "every day, another shell" on linux/mac.

You'll note that all of these shells try to be a better hammer. None of them go in the direction that powershell goes in.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#142

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?

Look, I’ve written a lot of powershell, and I don’t mind it at all, but its not surprising at all to me. Powershell isn’t in the same problem domain as rust/go/Scala/python. The niche it fills is “calling windows apis from c++” or, more recently, c#. It’s less effort than that, so it’s useful, on windows. It is not less effort than using say, a bash script on other platforms because it: - does not provide unique acce…

"Here is a revolutionary new thing that does everything better."

"No it doesn't, because it's not exactly like the thing that I am used to. In fact, it doesn't have solutions for the limitations it eliminates! Poor."

I heard the same arguments when, for example, SolidWorks with its true construcive solid geometry (CSG) 3D modelling swept away the old 2D "electronic paper" tools such as AutoCAD. The old guys complained in exactly the same way.

"What if I just want to draw the outline by hand? SolidWorks is terrible at that!".

"Umm... it can draw arbitrary cross-sections automatically in seconds!"

"Yes, but I can't control things the way that I'm used to!"

Etc...

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a similar go to in the Mac/Linux worlds? Yeah, it's called Powershell 7! Powershell was ported to cross platform dotnet a few years back. Currently running some Powershell scripts in production on a Linux box.

"You can use powershell" isnt quite the same as asking what the open source world does. Adoption of powershell on Linux/Mac is tiny. If you show up on a random system, it almost certainly will not be available. It's good to know powershell is cross platform now. Good to know this can be an option. But I'd also say the original question still deserves more exploration & thought, that asking what the romans do in rome…

[deleted]

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curl, jq is the good answer here. More from the fringe, I'm quite enjoying zx, a really nodejs powered scripting environment. https://github.com/google/zx Covered somewhat in ZX 3.0 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28195580 (189 points, 8 months ago, 163 points)

These are only vaguely comparable. It’s like saying assembly language is a substitute for something elegant in Haskell. Technically true in some sense, but not really.

Zx really intends to be a scripting language (and i think it does a good job) that happens to be javascript.

Personally I feel like thenbiggest missing piece ZX would beed to be a good straight up competitor to bash or zsh would be better interactive modes. A node repl.os ok, uses libreadline & has lots.of capabilities, but zx feels biased towards scripting, not am actual shell.

I dont see why you think zx couldnt be a substitute. Particularly & especially in the context of a discussion on powershell, where we are clearly already opening the gates of heterodoxy already.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are only vaguely comparable. It’s like saying assembly language is a substitute for something elegant in Haskell. Technically true in some sense, but not really.

Zx really intends to be a scripting language (and i think it does a good job) that happens to be javascript. Personally I feel like thenbiggest missing piece ZX would beed to be a good straight up competitor to bash or zsh would be better interactive modes. A node repl.os ok, uses libreadline & has lots.of capabilities, but zx feels biased towards scripting, not am actual shell. I dont see why you think zx couldnt be…

One of the other responses mentioned Nushell, which is a direct substitute for PowerShell in a meaningful sense: an interactive shell, structured pipelines, formatting as the final step of a pipeline, etc...

Anything else tends to be either a random bag of unrelated tools sticky-taped together, OR a heavyweight programming language.

The equivalent of JavaScript or Python is C#, CS-Script, or F# Interactive. Those are also full-featured programming languages.

I can process files in just a couple of lines of C#, but I still reach for PowerShell when doing this kind of thing unless I really need higher throughputs or complex processing.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#146
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvotes and upvotes are just imaginary internet points and you should not become attached to them.

That’s only true until someone puts them on the blockchain.

Yep. Karma NFTs, here we come.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#147
post #51

There are probably several thousand, if not more, other former Windows platform admins like me that are absurdly grateful that Snover stuck with his vision, giving us a path to being automation and, later, cloud experts. I've since branched off into DevOps, but up to about 2011/2012, was pigeon-holed as a Windows admin. Doing a few clever things with PowerShell and Active Directory led to my being chosen to work on m…

what does DevOps mean in this context?

(I'm asking because I thought k8s is already devops, just as azure is if devs have some access.)

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I’ve written a lot of powershell, and I don’t mind it at all, but its not surprising at all to me. Powershell isn’t in the same problem domain as rust/go/Scala/python. The niche it fills is “calling windows apis from c++” or, more recently, c#. It’s less effort than that, so it’s useful, on windows. It is not less effort than using say, a bash script on other platforms because it: - does not provide unique acce…

"Here is a revolutionary new thing that does everything better." "No it doesn't, because it's not exactly like the thing that I am used to. In fact, it doesn't have solutions for the limitations it eliminates! Poor." I heard the same arguments when, for example, SolidWorks with its true construcive solid geometry (CSG) 3D modelling swept away the old 2D "electronic paper" tools such as AutoCAD. The old guys complaine…

PS is a far cry from Ammonite (a Scala-based scripting package/environment/thing, with an easy deployment one-liner, easy access to allll of the Java ecosystem packages, compile time type checks, and so on)

Passing objects by default is a nice idea to enhance pipes... but how about going beyond pipes? :)

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a similar go to in the Mac/Linux worlds? Yeah, it's called Powershell 7! Powershell was ported to cross platform dotnet a few years back. Currently running some Powershell scripts in production on a Linux box.

"You can use powershell" isnt quite the same as asking what the open source world does. Adoption of powershell on Linux/Mac is tiny. If you show up on a random system, it almost certainly will not be available. It's good to know powershell is cross platform now. Good to know this can be an option. But I'd also say the original question still deserves more exploration & thought, that asking what the romans do in rome…

That random system might only have the dash shell and busybox. What are you going to do then?

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#150
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. it's not a comment on the downvote, it's a call to those down voting to participate to enhance the convo. If you read the rest of the guidelines, they also state not to cite the guidelines as a reply.

Which guideline states that?

Maybe he's referring to "Don't feed egregious comments by replying;". I interpret that as more about not feeding trolls.
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