Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> What you are saying essentially is that PowerShell is a better programming language than bash

In some sense, yes, but there is no distinct boundary. Or at least, there ought not to be one!

A criticism a lot of people (including me) had of Windows in the NT4 and 2000 days was that there was an enormous gap between click-ops and heavyweight automation using C++ and COM objects (or even VBScript or VB6 for that matter). There wasn't an interactive shell that smoothly bridged these worlds.

That's why many Linux users just assumed that Windows has no automation capability at all: They started with click-ops, never got past the gaping chasm, and just weren't aware that there was anything on the other side. There was, it just wasn't discoverable unless you were already an experienced developer.

PowerShell bridges that gap, extending quite a bit in both directions.

For example, I can use C# to write a PowerShell module that has the full power of a "proper" programming language, IDE with debug, etc... but still inherits the PS pipeline scaffolding so I don't have to reinvent the wheel for parameter parsing, tab-complete, output formatting, etc...



Windows still has horrendous automation support, PowerShell falls short and loses its USP as soon as you need anything that is not a builtin and series of bandaids like DSC didn't even ameliorate the situation. The UX is bad even when working with nothing but MS products like MSSQL.

The biggest leap for automation on Windows has been WSL, aka shipping Linux.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: