Yesterday, Microsoft announced
that they are open sourcing PowerShell, their powerful, task-based command-line
shell and scripting language, and bringing it to Linux. This move is part of
Microsoft’s larger efforts to orient more of their offerings to be
customer-centric, maximizing the utility of Microsoft tools by making them
support a wider range of functionality across a larger number of devices, and
is part of a largertrend
in open sourcing software.
Together at last. Image source: powershellgallery.com, Wikipedia.org
This move will see a number of small updates to PowerShell,
but Microsoft is emphasizing two major ones: the new PowerShell Editor
Service and an extension of the PowerShell Remoting Protocol (MS-PSRP). The
editor service will grant users their choice of a range of editors, beginning
with VS Code and Sublime, while the MS-PSRP extension will give users the
option to use SSH or WINRM as a transport. These changes to PowerShell also
increase what you can do with Microsoft’s Operations Management Suite,
providing visibility and control across Azure and other clouds.
For those who are already familiar with PowerShell, these
updates are an exciting new opportunity to expand what PowerShell can do. If
you aren’t familiar with PowerShell, there’s no better time to start learning.
Microsoft’s Learning
PowerShell GitHub repository provides a wealth of resources for developers,
but for those looking for a more guided experience, Rui Machado’s PowerShell Succinctly, part of
Syncfusion’s Succinctly series, is a
great way to gain experience with the product.
PowerShell Succinctly. Source: Syncfusion.com/ebooks.
For those of you who use PowerShell, what are your thoughts?
Is this the dawn of a new age of PowerShell, or is there more that you’d like
to see in future updates? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.