In my previous blog article (PowerShell Tip #2), I left off with the subject of inline help and stated there was a better way. I’m fast-forwarding through lots of concepts and jumping right into “Advanced Functions and Scripts” with this tip because they are where you’ll find the answer to a “better way” to add inline help. Click here to be redirected to the original post of this article on the author’s blog site where you can read the remainder of the article. µ
If you’re looking to learn or improve on existing skills as part of a new year goal and one of those in PowerShell, then you may find it useful to check out the Winter Scripting Games 2014. When you are looking to improve your scripting skills it can sometimes be tricky if you don’t have a practical problem to solve. By taking part in these games you will have a number of opportunities to apply your skills to _real _problems. Click here to be redirected to the original post of this article on the author’s blog site where you can read the remainder of the article.
Many thanks to SAPIEN Technologies for providing - completely without us asking - first-place and overall-best prizes for The Scripting Games! We’ll have copies of PowerShell Studio (x2), PrimalScript (x2), and the entire SAPIEN Software Suite (x1) for our overall top-scoring team at the end of the Games. Team members can decide how to divvy up the loo themselves. Remember that Event 1 is coming up soon:
Instructions available 2014-01-18 00:00:00 UTC
Entries accepted starting 2014-01-19 00:00:00 UTC
All entries due by 2014-01-26 00:00:00 UTC
**You must be registered and on a team
before
we begin accepting entries, or you will not be able to participate. **Any latecomers will not be allowed to chat or upload files, even if they join a team.
Tip #2 - Comment (Document) your code! This is another one of those tips that probably isn’t very popular, but regardless of how good you are at writing PowerShell scripts and functions, they’re useless if no one else can figure out how to use them. You might be thinking that you’re the only one who uses the PowerShell code that you write, but I’m sure that you like to go on vacation just like the rest of us and none of us are going to live forever. In my tip #1 blog you learned that you need to “Read the Help!”. This tip builds on the first one because it allows others to “Read the Help!” for the PowerShell code that you write. The type of help that you want to provide for your PowerShell functions and scripts is “Comment Based Help”. Click here to be redirected to the original post of this article on the author’s blog site where you can read the remainder of the article. µ
When you’re logged into the Games, you’ll notice that clicking on your team pulls up a “team discussion” box. That’s a shared discussion area for you and your team. However, if you click on one of the files you’ve uploaded, you’ll see the discussion turn into a “File Discussion.” We retain a separate thread for each file you upload, so that you and your team can discuss that file specifically.
Note that as of the time of this post (about 2pm Pacific on Jan 5th), the following teams do not have enough players to participate in the upcoming Practice Event:
Lake County Hoosiers
A
Annihilators
AZPOSH
Avengers
PeopleTecIsAwesome
Time Travel is Dangerous
Kotagiris
wow. much power. very shell.
Blasters
CCC
Anteaters
Barracudas
Hypothermia
Bearcats
#PSexec
Avalanche
Bull Gators
Alligators
To reiterate: **You must have 2-6 players signed into the Web site and joined to your team, or you will be unable to post entries. **Anyone joining after midnight UTC on Jan 6th will not count toward your team total for the Practice Event. Many of the above teams are “private,” which means nobody can join them without the team invite code. If you are on one of the following teams, especially if it’s public, _consider quitting NOW and joining another public team that needs players. _Otherwise, you may miss out on the practice event, which starts in just a couple of hours.
Due to some vagaries in the system, we have some users who “belong” to multiple teams. I think I’ve corrected the problem so it won’t crop up again. A couple of players’ team memberships were manually reduced to 1. If it was you, and you’re suddenly on the wrong team, post in the forum and I’ll fix it for you. For everyone else, when you go to the event list you may be redirected to a “You’re on multiple teams” page, and asked to click the team you wish to remain on. Your “join date” will not change, so you’ll still be able to participate in the events. You’ll simply be de-listed from the other teams. As always, post in the forums if you need help.
On Monday, our practice event should be open at http://ScriptingGames.org. **If you formed a team but only have one player on Monday morning, you will not be able to submit entries. **I’ve noticed several folks who have only a single player but who have set their team membership to “private,” meaning nobody can join you unless you provide them with your invitation code. **Your team must have 2-6 players to participate in the Games. **
You may consider leaving your team (it’ll be deleted if you’re the last player in it) and joining one of the public teams. Once you join a new team, you will not be able to fully participate until the current, in-progress event is over and the next event begins.
In case you haven’t heard, the 2014 Winter Scripting Games are just now getting started. Regardless of your skill level with PowerShell, it couldn’t be a better time to participate since this is the first time in the history of the scripting games that you’ll be able to work as part of a team and receive proactive feedback (before your code is judged) from a team of expert coaches who use PowerShell in the real world on a daily basis. Ultimately, the scripting games make learning PowerShell more interesting and challenging while giving you the opportunity to network with other enthusiasts in the industry. Now it’s time to talk about a PowerShell tip that I wanted to share. Tip #1 - Read the Help! While this may not be the most popular tip, believe it or not, it’s one of the most important and it’s something that’s so simple it’s often times overlooked. In my opinion, you’ll never truly be effective with PowerShell and be able to figure things out for yourself until you learn to read the help. Click here to be redirected to the original post of this article on the author’s blog site where you can read the remainder of the article. µ
It looks like Team Formation is in full swing, with more than a dozen teams already registered for The Scripting Games: Winter 2014. Some team tips:
If you create a new team, we’re assigning it a default team name. You can immediately change that.
Teams start as public, but we’re allowing you to make them private. This removed the team from the “join up” list, and gives you an invite code. You can distribute that invite to anyone you wish to join your team, and they can use it to sign up.
The public team list shows a time zone offset. This is kind of the average number of minutes between you and the other people on the team. So basically, lower numbers means you’re all closer to the same time zone. You don’t necessarily NEED to be close; it depends on how you all plan to collaborate.
Right now, we have about a half-dozen public teams that you can join if you’d like to participate in the Games. Remember, a team must have at least 2 players in order to participate. I’m loving some of the team names, like Excessive Use of -Force and Troll Bait. I know several local user groups are forming teams as well, and encouraging their members to join. You’re welcome to use email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or even standing outside and screaming as ways of recruiting members to your team. The practice event starts Jan 6. Please pay attention to PowerShell.org’s home page for late-breaking announcements - if we have a problem, we’ll post there to let you know. Good luck!
