Hi A.P.,
I agree powershell supports automation. However, it so complex and non-portable
that even learning about it and how to use it takes considerably longer than
learning about Unix automation. It puts a significant burden on developers to
document their DLL's and make the interfaces permanent. Complexity produces more
expensive and less reliable software.
BTW, what about the non-major apps? From your view, they are simply excluded
from automation.
In PS, type "help cmdlet" to see
the complexity of each and every command. PS does allow automation, but
it is very expensive because most people will be daunted when trying to learn how
to solve problems with it, people who know how to write stuff in PS are more expensive
employees, and development time for asking a simple question like
"Show me the last 5 files read in a directory tree"
can require days or more of research and experimentation.
A help page on almost any cmdlet produces a full page-width
pages of options, many of which lead to further questions about
usage.
Yes, PS automates Windows -- but at what cost?
Ed
PS: I should write my book of "Why Windows is not my favorite
operating system" (paraphrasing a famous BTL TM).
PS2: Speaking of complexity and documentation, here is the start
of the printout on an up-to-date MacOS of the command
man ls | less
NAME
ls – list directory contents
SYNOPSIS
ls [-@ABCFGHILOPRSTUWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxy1%,] [--color=when]
[-D format] [file ...]
ls – list directory contents
SYNOPSIS
ls [-@ABCFGHILOPRSTUWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxy1%,] [--color=when]
[-D format] [file ...]
and the same question about "ls" on Windows 11 powershell:
help ls | less # typed in PS
How did we let this happen?