Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Is PowerShell only for the Nerds?

An interesting question, to say the least. This blog carries a lot of PowerShell content – and much of that content is aimed at IT Pro types. I think it’s clear that IT Pro nerds working in the Microsoft need to know PowerShell. PowerShell is central to Microsoft’s current and future management roadmap – so, yes, PowerShell is for nerds.

That begs the question though - should home users have to learn it? Well – yes and no. There are certainly a number of PC enthusiasts out there that want to learn more about how to manage their home computer – and PowerShell can help much like they once used Cmd.exe (and may still do). Learning PowerShell does involve a learning curve. And much of the documentation and a fair share of blog posts do tend to be on the dense side until you become more familiar with PowerShell. So persevere.

But should your grandmother have to learn PowerShell? No. No more than she’d need or even want to learn C, the .NET Framework, DNS, TCP/IP! Those technologies, and PowerShell too, is built into the “system” so she doesn’t have to use them directly. Of course, developers may well begin to use PowerShell as part of building their GUI – and I hope they do so.

So if you’re a nerd, take a moment to download PowerShell V2 (assuming you haven’t already done so) and get cracking!

 

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2 comments:

KdgDev said...

Well, I've been reading up on Powershell a bit, and frankly, I wonder what I'm ever going to use it for. Powershell has some very powerful abilities, but they're intended for a specific task, a specific environment.

So, as a webdevelopper(with a broader but non-specialized IT background), I find very little use for it.

Perhaps I haven't done enough research, but the one thing I'm not sure about is this: can you write files for powershell, just like you can write .bat files for the good old CMD? Like a script that you just double click and it executes right away.

If so, I think I might be able to think of some semi-usefull stuff. For instance: a script that deletes all thumbs.db files on my hard drive.

In a bat file, I would've written this:

@echo off
cd \
del /s /q /f /a:h thumbs.db
del /s /q /f thumbs.db


For instance.

jv said...

I am in favor of all Grandmothers being required to learn PowerShell. A test would then be given for Grandmothers to get a PC license.

Happy New Year All!