Comments on: PowerShell Editors and Other Not-So-Fascinating Stuff

By: Tomas Restrepo

Tomas Restrepo — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:07:39 +0000

Jeffrey: Yes, that thought occurred to me as well . But that’s precisely why a lot of us were so excited about powershell in the first place (a real shell in windows? whoot!).
Regarding out-gridview, sorry but those are the bad shivers. But let me clarify this a bit:
It’s great that ps is so flexible that you can actually implement things like that. But, I’m a little concerned that things like that are built into the core product. Mostly, the way I look at it is this: If I want to work on the console, I want to remain in the console; I certainly don’t want windows opening and flying around (which is why I also hate the way get-credential works on the default host). Yes, I realize this is a fully optional feature and you can choose not to use it, but I can’t control what other people do in their scripts which I may use.
Which brings me to my second reason for disliking it: There’s no way (currently at least) to restrict a user scripts/commands from using winforms or creating windows (like out-gridview) when I’m using the PowerShell hosting interfaces in my own applications, and that’s a significant oversight. For example, what happens if I’m hosting powershell in a non-interactive scenario and someone inadvertently uses out-gridview? it can easily hang my application if there’s no one at the console to close the window, and that’s a real problem for running stuff on the server side. (yes, I realize there’s no way this could be prevented 100%, but if at least it wasn’t so "right at hand" it wouldn’t be as bad).

By: Jeffrey Snover

Jeffrey Snover — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:48:00 +0000

> Is it just me that finds it ironic that PowerShell V2 brings several UI-related features when the big thing about V1 was creating a fantastic shell scripting language..
… from a hard-core GUI company.
Sorta like a contradiction wrapped in an irony.
btw – when you said, "out-gridview gives the shivers" – where those "good" shivers or "bad" shivers?
Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows Management Partner 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

By: Tomas Restrepo

Tomas Restrepo — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:27:21 +0000

Hi Hal, Thanks for the comments!
Let me clarify a few of my points just to avoid confusion:
When I mentioned it was in beta, I wasn’t implying it was unstable or anything (can’t really comment on that). It’s just that I try to refrain from installing significant betas on my main machine’s main OS to avoid having trouble (I install lots of beta stuff on my virtual machines, but I have less need of something like PS+ there).
Also, regarding licensing, as I said, I don’t really mind that model; I was merely pointing out that I’m not sure exactly what they mean by "commercial use" within the specific context of what their application is used for. In other words, it’s ok that it’s a product you pay for; just that it’s not very clear who the free-non-commercial license really is aimed at!

By: Hal Rottenberg

Hal Rottenberg — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:16:01 +0000

Few comments on your points above:
1. I love PS+ and I hardly ever use the debugger. It’s got a ton of stuff to like.
2. Fairly busy, but you can turn it all off with a quick dbl-click in the console. Very minimalist.
3. It’s been in beta for a while. It is…fairly mature. I run into bugs occasionally, but they’re quickly fixed. It has come a long way from a 3 or 4 months ago when I could not call it mature by a long stretch of the imagination.
4. I think they plan on merging PS+ and PS Analyzer into one product that will be $129 (which is the price of PSA now). During the beta, ps+ is "just free". The commercial-use part only applies once it is out of beta.