Philosophy of Automation

re: Philosophy of Automation

Yuval Rakavy — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:48:05 GMT

Here is a small script to have a nice prompt.

When I am in my documents, replace the long prefix c:\Documents and Settings\{User}\My documents to ~, so rather than have half a line prompt, you get some more typing space...

function global:prompt {

$location = (get-location)

$prefix = $home + "\My Documents"

if($location.ToString().StartsWith($prefix)) {

"PS ~" + $location.ToString().Substring($prefix.Length) + "> "

}

else {

"PS " + $location + "> "

}

re: Philosophy of Automation

Craig — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:00:47 GMT

Are there any Get-FileVersionInfo functions laying around?

re: Philosophy of Automation

PowerShellTeam — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:09:18 GMT

> Are there any Get-FileVersionInfo functions laying around?

Yup - check out:

http://iirc.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!CBB573C0CE8DEB37!371.entry

I left a comment encouraging the use of Fullnames and pithy aliases. See my comment for there for an example of what I mean.

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]

Windows PowerShell/MMC Architect

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

re: Philosophy of Automation

reinux — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 14:37:28 GMT

Sorry to write another rant especially on Christmas, but this has been bothering me for a while.

Each time these features of subtle nuance are discussed on this blog I feel less and less confident in my knowledge of the language. So much so that I still haven't had a chance to make anything useful in PowerShell.

I'd rather spend a couple extra seconds thinking than consult the manual each time I'm not sure about some well-meaning but uncertain behavior. That's a lot more "overhead".

Discovering, learning and/or memorizing which conditions a string will evaluate to true or false is not fun, especially if there is a reasonable risk that we will end up learning the hard way: post mortem.

Learning and actively recalling these conditions requires more thinking than punching in a few extra keystrokes to disambiguify.

Coming from a C background, you have to understand that not only do null strings evaluate as false, you also have to realize (usually the hard way unless you've been reading this blog) that empty strings evaluate false as well.

Coming from a C# or VB background you would have no problem with a little bit of verbosity.

Coming from Bash you would expect to use the -n operator for this purpose.

Coming from IT administration with little to no programming knowledge, intuition would probably tell you that, like most of the strict literal behavior of computers in general, it would just throw an error -- strings aren't yes/no's.

I'm concerned that the textbooks for the language are going to end up being just as thick as the language is rich.

re: Philosophy of Automation

Matt Moran — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:58:53 GMT

I loved this entry because it is a message I have been evangelizing since early in my career.

Having published several articles - both magazine and online - on Kixtart and other scripting tools - I am convinced that automation and its underutilization across much of IT is a huge missed opportunity for IT professionals to add tremendous value.

I blogged about your post and my thoughts on scripting and automation here...

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/career/archives/why-automation-matters-hint-why-it-matters-too-13634

In order for IT to provide innovation at the organization (department and user) level, IT Must First Automate IT.

I'm excited about Powershell because it provides another great tool for doing so.

Thanks.

Matt

Huge advances come from the accumulation of small deltas (or: Why You Should Blog)

Tim Long — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:48:13 GMT

I stole the title of this post from Jeffrey Snover, architect of Windows Powershell. Jeffrey has a post

Resolve to blog your automation

Windows PowerShell — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:54:19 GMT

In response to my entry Philosophy of Automation , Tim Long blogged a response where he advanced the

re: Philosophy of Automation

Jeffery Hicks — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:09:31 GMT

I love this idea and have tried to live it myself for many years. It's something I've tried to stress to students and readers. It may not seem like much but even saving a few keystrokes helps. If I can do something with 2 keystrokes I don't have to reach for my mouse or worry about mistyping a long command and having to correct it.

I blogged recently about an "old-school" automation technique of Doskey. (http://sapien.eponym.com/blog/Scripting/BatchCmd/_archives/2006/12/18/2581354.html)

I have to say that after starting to use Doskey again, I find myself getting a little more done with a little less energy. Right now there's a trade-off in that I'm spending time adding to my macro file but in the long run I know it will payoff.

Send-SignatureToClipBoard

Windows PowerShell — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:44:47 GMT

In my previous blog about the Philosophy of Automation , I encouraged everyone to share their automation

Editing your Profile file

Windows PowerShell — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:33:43 GMT

$hay has a new scripting blog at http://scriptolog.blogspot.com/ . His first blog entry Restart your

re: Philosophy of Automation

dave dolan — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 23:40:56 GMT

Haha, Jeff, so I agree with you 100% on the automation, and in some ways I've been saying the same thing for years, as I'm sure you have... The only question I have for you is: how'd you score such a nifty post alias like Windows PowerShell? Can I be Windows UsefulButNotQuitePowerShell?

The Admin Development Model and Send-Snippet

Windows PowerShell — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:13:17 GMT

One of the things that motivated us to develop PowerShell was the belief that we (Microsoft) had been

Make your SharePoint debugging experience a little less painful

Andrew Connell [MVP MCMS] — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:57:21 GMT

Make your SharePoint debugging experience a little less painful