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Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

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Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#71

Post by BLKNSLVR »

mjburgess wrote: post #35
cobbal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mac user, I was going to provide a flippant answer, but I decided to look into it instead. Personally, I use zsh or a custom built shell scripting library inside swift. Always like to see improvements to shells though. Googled for it and got a dozen guides on how to install it in mac, but none that actually explained how to use it. (One video result looked like it might have some info, but to me that doesn't cou…

Incidentally, I needed to teach myself PS for an azure-focused client of mine -- and I did so on mac (incidentally, making notes in a jupyter notebook with PS backend). It's a weird language, but I always reminded myself of its competitor: bash -- which is perhaps an order of magnitude more weird. It feels like it could be a "shell language for the cloud", ie., the language for cross-OS cloud automation work.

Is it possible to "learn" Powershell?

My very limited experience has been: look up problem, find likely solution, enter 60-character command specific to this niche issue that I'll only ever have to use again in this exact situation, which is now solved until next reinstall.

Having said that, those are the only situations in which I've needed to use powershell.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#72

Post by sidpatil »

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…

> most computer systems since the early 1970s

How are you defining "most"? Back in those days there was much more diversity in the computing landscape.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#73

Post by striking »

andrew_ wrote: post #67
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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?

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#74

Post by sidpatil »

oaiey wrote: post #15
oaiey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> mit vs. GPL

By this measure, we shouldn't be using X or Wayland because they're MIT.

> pipe-and-filter vs loaded DLLs

At first I didn't understand what you were referring to, but I realized you were talking about cmdlets. In that regard, PowerShell is more like a scripting language than it is like a traditional Unix shell.

The more "Unix-like" approach would be to write thin command-line wrappers around the libraries you want to use. If I'm not mistaken, this is how projects like LAME and FFmpeg are implemented.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#76

Post by opencl »

gpvos wrote: post #70
rtpg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably he was still getting paid a lot? It is MSFT after all. I imagine that a certain kind of person, willing to write tooling and even get demoted for it, is willing to stick around with a bit of a pay cut anyways.

What other interesting jobs are available in the region, how willing are you and your family to move, etc., so many factors.

The region is Seattle, I don't think there was a lack of other options if he really wanted to leave.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#77

Post by majkinetor »

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"?

Its far superior, like light years superior. PowerShell will exist, entire MS ecosystem is now based on it. That fear has passed years ago, especially when it got cross-platform. I expect actually to see more pwsh on linux and even OTB pwsh linux distribution (heck, I will make it myself if needed when I get retired).

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#78

Post by bigbillheck »

andrew_ wrote: post #67
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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.

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

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#79

Post by pyb »

andrew_ wrote: post #43

I'd like to know why Snower accepted abuse from corporate overlords for 5+ years (according to the thread). Being "in the dog house" for that long is ridiculous on the surface. That would never stand in today's world of tech. Is he just oldschool and had the mindset of "the company is always right"? Is he just a company man with intense loyalty? I would understand the company not adopting it and having to spend five…

What makes you think he didn't try to change jobs? It's not like tech interviews are designed to detect this kind of talent.

Re: Jeffrey Snower was originally demoted over PowerShell

#80

Post by Sinidir »

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.

use nitter.net instead.
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