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PowerShell articles, tutorials, and guides from community experts.

• Don Jones

PowerShell Great Debate: Can You Have Too Much Help?

In The Scripting Games this year, more than a few folks took the time to write detailed comment-based help. Awesome. No debating it - comment-based help _is a good thing. _ But some folks felt that others took it too far. There were definitely scripts where the authors used, for example, the .NOTES section to explain their thinking and approach. Some commenters felt it was excessive, while others have pointed out, “wow, what if every programmer gave us some idea what the heck he/she was thinking at the time?

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• John Mello

PhillyPoSH 08/01/2013 meeting summary and presentation materials

John Mello gave a presentation on Tips and Tricks learned from the 2013 Scripting Games, a copy of his presentation and scripts can be obtained here Various group members contributed to a Script and Tell, scripts and participant names are forthcoming. A recording of the meeting is available on our YouTube channel, please note that the recording ends about 5 minutes before our meeting was done.

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• Steven Murawski
Announcements

Need Desired State Configuration Modules?

You’ve probably been hearing about Desired State Configuration from a number of sources (Runas Radio, the PowerScripting Podcast, or the Channel 9 TechEd video for example).  If you haven’t go check out those previously mentioned resources, I’ll wait… Ok, now that you have a basic understanding of what Desired State Configuration (DSC) is, I have an announcement. PowerShell.Org is building a repository of DSC modules for the community to use and contribute to.

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• Don Jones
Training

Coming Soon: 55039 "PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking" Course

Later this month, Jason Helmick will be offering a revised “PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking” course at Interface Technical Training in Phoenix. This new course carries the Microsoft Courseware Marketplace number 55039 - that’s right, this is an official, unofficial course that will be available to all Microsoft training partners! (Courseware Marketplace offerings are not written or endorsed by Microsoft, but they are equivalent to Official Curriculum in many ways, including being eligible for Software Assurance voucher programs.

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• Don Jones
PowerShell for Admins

My PowerShell Workflow Series on TechNet Magazine

As most folks are aware, I’ve been writing the Windows PowerShell column for Microsoft’s _TechNet Magazine _for… wow, going on 7 years now. For 2013, I was doing a serialized column on PowerShell Workflow, introducing a bit of the technology at a time in each month’s article. Eagle-eyed observers will note that the series has “paused,” with no new articles in July or August. First, I’m sorry for the interruption. Unfortunately, right now Microsoft is re-evaluating and re-positioning TechNet Magazine (perhaps in line with a larger re-considering of the TechNet brand, where they recently discontinued the subscription product), and for the time being the company is sticking with internally generated content for TechNet Magazine.

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• Don Jones
Announcements

A Quick #PowerShell #PSHSummit Update (Europe & NA)

PowerShell Summit North America 2014, April 28-30 (special precon on April 27) is open for registration to our 2013 alumni, shareholders, and to TechLetter subscribers. The alumni block will be released on August 15, and the subscriber block on September 15th; shortly after, sales will be open to the public. If you’re a shareholder, alumni, or subscriber, and you didn’t get your registration in e-mail, drop me a line (use the Contact link in the Site Info menu).

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• Don Jones
Training

Is this list "Everything" in PowerShell?

Soooo…. it’s time for me to start looking at updating my various training materials (books, videos, courses, whatnot) for v4. I’m going to, with at least some of these, take an all-versions approach. I’ll teach what’s in v2, then cover what v3 added, then cover v4, etc. It’ll be easier to maintain over the upcoming years. For right now, I’m trying to assemble an organized topic list of “everything” the shell does.

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• Don Jones

PowerShell Great Debate: Script or Function?

One of the most frequent comments in The Scripting Games this year was along the lines of, “you should have submitted this as a function, not a script.” Of course, the second-most frequent comment was something like, “you shouldn’t have submitted this as a function.” Let’s be clear: if an assignment explicitly asks for a function, you should write one. What we’re debating are the pros and cons of a single tool being written one way or another.

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• Don Jones

PowerShell Great Debate: PowerShell Versions?

Today’s Great Debate is a bonus, offered from former team member June Blender. Take it away, June! Like several of the excellent debates in our Great Debate series, this debate issue arose during in Scripting Games 2013 when different judges used different selection criteria to evaluate entries. Some judges, like me, wanted to see evidence that the scripter had studied all features of the newest version of the Windows PowerShell language and selected the best approach for their solution.

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• Don Jones

PowerShell Great Debate: The Purity Laws

This should be interesting. During The Scripting Games, I observed (and in some cases made) a great many comments that I’m lumping under the name “Purity Laws.” You shouldn’t use a command-line utility like Robocopy in a PowerShell script. You shouldn’t use .NET classes in a PowerShell script. You should map a drive using New-PSDrive, not net use. And so on. You see where I’m going: there are folks out there who feel as if the only thing that goes into a PowerShell script is Pure PowerShell.

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