How do you use PowerShell? [closed]

Answer 1

I'm an admin by trade and just starting in the "Dev" world, but I see that PowerShell can be very useful to developers in a number of ways.

1. Task automation -> Lee Holmes (a developer on the PowerShell team) posted a proof-of-concept called BgShell, which was basically the PowerShell runtime hosted in a windows forms app that listened for keystrokes and kicked off actions written in PowerShell based on them. It also included some clipboard automation.
2. Quick access to the .NET framework. You don't have to compile and run something or use another program like Snippet Compiler to test some functionality. Load the assembly into your PowerShell session and interact with it. You get all the discoverability of PowerShell (like Get-Member) to explore your object.
3. Easy to build domain specific languages. James Kovacs wrote a simple build script language with PowerShell called Psake.
4. It can provide a scripting language for your application. Since PowerShell is part of the 09 Common Engineering Criteria, a lot of Microsoft applications will have interfaces for PowerShell, and familiarity with the language syntax will grow. You can leverage that knowledge by embedding the PowerShell runtime in your application and providing a scripting interface to your users, choosing what objects they will have access to.
5. Along the same line, if you need to create a command-line interface for your application, PowerShell provides a large part of the underlying plumbing needed for parsing arguments, and other basic tasks, leaving only the business logic for you to write, and providing a consistent interface with other applications (for example, if you have user accounts that need to be managed (that don't already integrate with Active Directory, an admin could (using the Quest AD Cmdlets and your applications interface) Get-QADUser | New-MyApplicationUser and be done. The Exchange 2007 team did this very well. All the functionality is based on PowerShell cmdlets, the GUI calls the cmdlets and shows the user what is being run, so they can build scripts based off of that.
6. It's just cool! In about 250 lines (including comments), Rob Foust and Jeff Hicks wrote a network sniffer in PowerShell. Easier to use than WinDump for lightweight troubleshooting.
7. Community - There is a great community focused around PowerShell, including developers. Find out more at PowerShellCommunity.org.