I appreciate your comments. I had forgotten about the Astronaut Architect articles, and re-read them.

I like to think that I’m fairly pragmatic when it comes to producing software. My approach to a new project is to take the original idea, play with its boundaries to ensure that it’s something the customer will be delighted with, select the most appropriate tool set for the job, and ensure that the project evolves towards the delightful outcome as efficiently as possible in the face of real-life constraints.

That’s a long-winded way to say the I want the problem space to drive tool selection and methodology.

Nine months have passed since I wrote this rant. I’ve found that PowerShell, as interesting a technology as it is, doesn’t frequently fall out as the “best tool for the job” for the type of work I typically do. (When it is the best tool, it’s fabulous.) But the infrequency has gutted the amount of time I spent on the tool.

(I acknowledge that there’s a potential vicious cycle that can prevent you from obtaining the necessary skills to use the tool well in the first place.)

Regardless, the one thing I am grateful for is the rich selection of overlapping tools we have at our disposal. I don’t believe the computing industry would have advanced explosively if we didn’t have the freedom to innovate specialized tools.

Thank you again for stopping by and sharing your perspective.

James

I understand what prompted your post and I’m sure their are thousands just like us. People are leaving Linux and Windows for the same thing Stability and good tools.
Thanks for listening
Joe

Let me say that I really appreciate the time you took to respond, and the thought and care that you put into your response. I hesitated writing this article because it’s mostly griping in public over the heartburn experience changing tool sets. You’re absolutely correct that we all go through it, repeatedly. PowerShell just happens to be my personal whipping boy this time. I don’t hate it, it’s just the object causing me pain at the moment.

I did some further thought, especially what drove me to publicly air griping that I don’t usually do. I think that the place where I do have legitimate feedback is in the marketing to experienced software engineers whose paradigms have been shaped by Unix. I believe that I’m exactly the type of person who should be competent with PowerShell (if not an outright fan).

There are so many cool technologies to play with, and they all compete for my limited time. Even though I’ve been exposed to PowerShell’s existence for some time, and played with it from time to time, I haven’t seen any compelling case made for why I as a software engineer should invest time into this tool rather than something else. After all, I have Perl and Python when the crusty old DOS bat file won’t do.

The fact that I’m investing the time and money into learning PowerShell is more by accident than anything else. There’s part of me inside that feels, oh, what’s a good word… slighted by marketing, like people of my background have been glossed over. PowerShell’s a great tool with a clean design, and I’m late to the party.

I don’t know if that makes sense at all.

And, I will certainly pick up a copy of PowerShell in Action. Knowing why things work the way they do goes a long ways with me.

…

As for the example in the article, I wanted to go beyond a step beyond help get* and also grep the summary text. Nevertheless, thanks for the pointer about wildcarding. It’s easy to make assumptions about the way things work, and that small difference is IMHO significant.

Anyhow, again, thanks for taking the time to respond.

James

BTW – this is not unlike most developers experience in switching languages. I wrote a lot of Fortran code using the C compiler before it clicked. Then I spent 6 months writing C code with the C++ compiler. Our tools affect the way we think about the problem. Coming from Unix, you’ll think about how to parse text to get what you want. That will cause you some heartburn with PowerShell. (I think we do a reasonable job with Text parsing but I think we could do more for people who want to do everything this way.) If/when you start thinking about things differently, you’ll find that you can do amazingly powerful things with a small amount of effort. e.g.

get-help * -parameter computername
get-help * |where {$_.Synopsis -match “WMI”} | Out-GridView
Get-Eventlog system -EntryType Error |Group {$_.TimeWritten.DayOfYear} -noelement

Now let’s be clear. VMS DCL has a TON of shortcomings. It’s pipelines where complete crap. It’s utilities where weak as hell (they did have a couple awesome ones though). There wasn’t a week that went by that I didn’t say – Damn – I wish I had a Unix shell to work with. Over time I changed that and said, Damn – I wish I had the best of both worlds. Years later, I went to Microsoft and decided to see if I could build that (incorporating other great influences as well [e.g. AS400, TCL, etc]).

I appreciate your criticism. I’m not sure what you wanted to do but I think all you had to do was:
Help Get*
We use wildcard all over the place, not just for filenames (btw – AS400 does something similar – those were some superstar engineers and they don’t get enough credit for their excellent contributions to our industry).

I appreciate the criticism – I take it to heart. At the end of the day, we are all about making people successful. I think what we are doing with PowerShell will make more people more successful. Anytime you point out flaws in what we are doing, it helps us understand what we need to do to better help you succeed so we treat the critism as a gift (so please keep it flowing [The post has my email address - feel free to send them to me directly]). That said, let’s be clear – if using Perl/Bash makes you successful – go with god. Successful Windows users is all I’m after – one path or another.

BTW – given what I can tell about the way you think from your post, I think you might enjoy Bruce Payette’s book PowerShell in Action. Superstar Bruce is the lead dev on the language and one of the many guys on the team that has deep Unix backgrounds. In his book, he explains WHY we do the things we do. Even if you hate PowerShell, I think you’ll enjoy his thinking and they way he explains things. (He is a truly brilliant guy).

Cheers!

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Distinguished Engineer
Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell
Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx