With recent versions of Windows, especially 2003, a LOT of functionality is available from the command prompt. Pretty much anything you can do in the GUI--things like setting network properties, queries against Active Directory, setting user attributes, and system maintenance tasks--can be done on the command line or in lightweight scripts. The big weakness, as you guys pointed out, is in the archaic shell that is CMD.EXE. Windows really does need a real shell that's integrated into the OS and _DOCUMENTED_.
Another problem with using Windows command line tools is the total lack of consistency when it comes to command line options. You'd think that there would be set of standards for command line utilities and it would be pretty easy to enforce, being that everything comes from within one company. But that's not the case. Using GNU tools is MUCH easier in that aspect, since even tools written by different groups of people in different parts of the world all seem to use parameters that are at least documented alike. Example: just about every GNU tool has a --help option, a -v (verbose) option, and associated 'man' pages that are formatted very much alike, making it easy to get to the section you want to find. With windows utilities, it's a patchwork of strange commands with different naming conventions, different command line options, and different means of getting help. Installing Cygwin and BASH is nifty and useful, but it's also a pain and kind of weird when it comes to paths and interacting with the windows environment. Scripting with WSH and WMI is really useful and powerful, but it's nowhere near as easy as scripting on a Linux/UNIX system. Once you try it, you realize the unnecessary bloat that the whole Windows environment is. It's often _really_ hard to find the right WMI call to get to the option you want. I usually have to try to find some example from a google search or dig through a book for half an hour. Finding system information on a Linux box is a lot more straightforward. Even when things aren't apparent, you can usually find a trail to what you want, or dig through /etc or /proc enough to find it. Or more easily, search the web, since the internals of Linux are MUCH better documented than Windows. I'm glad to see that MS will FINALLY build a real command shell into some future version of the OS. It's really sad that it's going to take 3-5 years, though. I spend my time about half and half between administering Windows servers and Linux servers, and I do a lot of automation tasks on both platforms. The lack of a clean, integrated, documented Windows shell definitely slows down what would be quick and simple tasks on a Linux system. -Tim On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 10:33 -0500, Joey Kelly wrote: > On Thursday June 9 2005 09:58, Andrew Baudouin spake: > > On the subject of Microsoft's new CLI, Monad: > > > > Why should you be worried? Were Microsoft to develop the best CLI ever > > conceived, it wouldn't take bash, tcsh or zsh or whatever is your > > shell of choice > > > > Flash-forward to now, as one of the other areas in which Linux scores > > over Windows (a UNIX command-line is an awesome and enjoyable tool to > > use; the Windows command line, by contrast, is a rubber hammer with > > nails in the handle :)) may well be snatched away, and we see the same > > thing: people are hoping against hope that Microsoft foul it up, > > because if they don't another area of Linux superiority disappears, > > along with another shred of their self-esteem. > > Yes, bash and other shells are important, and highly useful. However, you're > forgetting UNIX pipes, or the ability to string commands together. A cool > shell language without pipes may be flashy, but not enough to steal our > thunder. > > Anyway, if you install cygwin or Redmond's own SFU, you get a limited > implementation of bash and pipes --- the underlying operating system and > fundamental way of doing things is still anchored in GUI. > > Lastly, pipes are argueably the only thing UNIX actually got right (re: the > unix-haters handbook). I cannot conceive of Microsoft improving on pipes. > This is all marketing --- "we never much cared for the UNIX way, but we're > gonna invent something that'll blow it way, you just watch". Yeah, right. > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
