Also bear in mind that PowerShell has not had the best history in terms of
security exploits. (Well, I guess it's a Microsoft product after all...)
On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 11:00 AM, John Ellyson via Houston
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>I've been using PowerShell for a while at work. I'm not saying that I
>necessarily "love" it, but it definitely is an improvement over the older DOS
>batch stuff.
>
>
>Basically, Microsoft decided to come up with their own native scripting
>language for the Windows environment and created PowerShell. They borrowed
>concepts from other languages (including Perl) when they made PowerShell.
>
>
>Here's some of the aspects that (in my opinion) make PowerShell better than
>the older DOS command prompt environment.
> - added in regex support
> - you can pipe output from one cmdlet to another (They call PowerShell
> "commands" cmdlets.)
> - This is true even for the cmdlets that return objects. In that
> case, you're piping objects and not just text.
> - If you set up parameters for your PowerShell scripts correctly (instead
> of directly pulling from $Args), the Get-Help cmdlet will provide some of the
> basic usage output for you.
> - built-in parsers for CSV and XML with the Import-CSV and Select-Xml
> cmdlets
> - These cmdlets don't provide the fine tuning options that some of the
> CSV and XML modules do in Perl.
> - PowerShell can natively use .NET libraries. (This is one method for
> providing a GUI interface for your PowerShell scripts.)
> - Microsoft is moving more of their products and Windows management to be
> accessible from PowerShell.
> - Ability to dot source another file (e.g. You have functions in
> functions.ps1. Then in your MyScript.ps1, you can pull in and use
> functions.ps1 by using ". ./functions.ps1" in your script.)
> - error handling functionalities
> - With the Start-Job and Wait-Job cmdlets, you can run stuff in the
> background while your main script does other tasks and also have the main
> script wait for the background stuff to get finished before moving on.
> - The Get-Member cmdlet is very helpful in digging into the structure
> (methods and properties) of objects that you don't have documentation for.
>
>
>However, there are (at least from my perspective) a few drawbacks with
>PowerShell.
> - Prior to Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, older Windows versions don't
> natively have PowerShell installed. (Vista might have PowerShell, but can't
> say for sure off the top of my head.)
> - Depending on how old the Windows version is, I believe that you can
> add in PowerShell.
> - Newer versions of PowerShell have added functionality not available in
> older versions.
> - For example, PowerShell 1.0 and 2.0 do not have cmdlets available to
> retrieve/configure NIC settings. These functionalities was added in
> PowerShell 3.0. I haven't use this yet, but from what I can tell, I think
> using these cmdlets would be much easier than trying to use the older netsh
> utility.
> - I have found that Microsoft's PowerShell documentation has been very
> difficult to find. And when you can find it, I personally found it to be
> somewhat lacking - as in not documenting or providing examples for the cmdlet
> option that I'm trying to figure out how to use.
>
>
>At this point, if I'm personally trying to script something in Windows and
>want to use what is natively available, I'd use PowerShell.
>
>
>For anyone wanting to look into PowerShell and looking for basic
>documentation, here's a few links that might be helpful:
> - PowerShell 2.0
> - basic cmdlet information --
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347701.aspx
> - about topics --
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347616.aspx
> - PowerShell 3.0 and newer
>
> - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh847840.aspx
>
>John Ellyson
>
>
>On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Mike Flannigan via Houston <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>
>>On 9/16/2014 1:02 AM, Zakariyya Mughal via Houston wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Heheh, I'm still in university and I'm showing people Perl tricks that
>>>blow their minds. People these days just don't use dynamic languages to
>>>their full capability. They just learn the basics and stop. :-P
>>>
>>>I just went to Houston Techfest[*] this weekend (as I have for a number
>>>of years now) and I'm mostly seeing C# and JavaScript. There used to be
>>>a larger Java presence and even some Ruby, but that has seemed to waned.
>>>I'm wondering, would anyone want to present some Perl there next year? I
>>>think I may have got someone interested in looking at DBIx::Class.
>>>
>>>Also, have any of you checked out PowerShell? It's got a very terse
>>>syntax. I may have to steal some of it for Perl.
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>- Zaki Mughal
>>>
>>
>>I didn't know I had PowerShell on this Win7 machine
>>of mine. I'm watching tutorial 1 of 5 right now. This
>>guy sure gets excited about things that don't seem all
>>that cool to me, but it sure is cool to him. He is easily
>>impressed.
>>
>>I guess this PowerShell is a little bit better than the
>>command prompt I am using now, but not much better in
>>my opinion. I really need to find a better one.
>>
>>
>>
>>Mike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Houston mailing list
>>[email protected]
>>http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/houston
>>Website: http://houston.pm.org/
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Houston mailing list
>[email protected]
>http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/houston
>Website: http://houston.pm.org/
>
>
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