Microsoft makes PowerShell open source, brings it to Linux and Mac OS X

[Shawn Knight]

As anticipated, Microsoft has made PowerShell open source and available on Linux, further driving Satya Nadella’s vision of an open, customer-centric company that’s willing to work with the competition.

PowerShell, for those not up to speed, is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language that’s built on the .NET framework. It’s designed to assist IT professionals in automating and controlling the administration of Windows (and now, Linux) and the apps that run on them.

Getting PowerShell ported to Linux wasn’t a process that took place overnight. If you recall, Microsoft laid the foundation roughly two years ago when it announced plans to port the full server-side .NET Core stack to Linux and Mac OS X. Completion of that work meant PowerShell could be brought to more platforms.

PowerShell is initially available on Centos, Ubuntu and Red Hat as well as Mac OS X with more platforms to be added in the future. It’s still early days, of course, with Microsoft admitting that they’re in learning mode.

Jeffrey Snover, a Technical Fellow with the Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Group, invites users to download alpha builds and grab the source code from GitHub.

To help users along the way, Microsoft has created a PowerShell Editor Service that lets you choose from a range of editors and get a great experience with Intellisense, debugging and so on. What’s more, they will be extending the PowerShell Remoting Protocol (MS-PSRP) to use OpenSSH as a native transport with the option to use SSH or WINRM as a transport.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/66037-microsoft-makes-powershell-open-source-brings-linux-mac.html

 

[DelJo63]

Power Shell is a MS tool for MS programmers to assist when working in non-MS environments. No Mac, Unix or Linux person will abandon the tool sets they already have and opt for PS.

 

[VitalyT]

Just like .NET for Linux and OS X, Microsoft is 10 years too late to the party with its Powershell. At this point it is irrelevant.

The .NET market of software developers will continue shrinking, there is no stopping it. And those who have moved away from .NET aren't looking back. And I'm talking from personal experience. I dumped .NET in 2014, after using it for 10 years, and good riddance.

 

[Patrick Laramee]

I dont think its to help people from linux and mac to move to Windows. I think its to help people who are already using PowerShell and .NET being able to move to linux or mac since they will eventually get rid of Windows.

My two cent...

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Just like .NET for Linux and OS X, Microsoft is 10 years too late to the party with its Powershell. At this point it is irrelevant.

The .NET market of software developers will continue shrinking, there is no stopping it. And those who have moved away from .NET aren't looking back. And I'm talking from personal experience. I dumped .NET in 2014, after using it for 10 years, and good riddance.

Why? I've always thought .NET was a pretty good programming framework. What are you using to replace it and on what platform?

 

[VitalyT]

Why? I've always thought .NET was a pretty good programming framework. What are you using to replace it and on what platform?

These days I'm writing all the server-side code in Node.js, and all the client-side in Angular.js

.NET was over-engineered, and its Web.config is the biggest nightmare they came up with, which is like a plague. They indulged in hiding many important features, obscuring them through intangible Web.config settings, thus making the platform way more difficult to understand and configure properly.

In my experience, at least 90% of developers do not understand the configuration parameters that they provide in Web.config, which comes of no surprise.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

These days I'm writing all the server-side code in Node.js, and all the client-side in Angular.js

.NET was over-engineered, and its Web.config is the biggest nightmare they came up with, which is like a plague. They indulged in hiding many important features, obscuring them through intangible Web.config settings, thus making the platform way more difficult to understand and configure properly.

In my experience, at least 90% of developers do not understand the configuration parameters that they provide in Web.config, which comes of no surprise.

Firstly, .NET doesn't equate to developing web-sites. It equates to developing almost any type of application. You speak about one issue that is bad. The web.config situation was okay when XML was very popular. XML is for the most part dead now and Microsoft has realized that. They embrace JavaScript Object Notation now for their config files.

I'm not sure if you meant to say that 90% of developers don't understand how configuration files work. If that was your idea, I find that hard to believe also since the concept of parent-child hierarchies aren't all that complicated for one who understands object-oriented programming.

You might wanna take a look at what Microsoft has been doing in the time you've been away. They might be slow but they are doing some things right.

 

[VitalyT]

Firstly, .NET doesn't equate to developing web-sites.

I never said it does.

You speak about one issue that is bad.

I only picked one from the top of my head.

I'm not sure if you meant to say that 90% of developers don't understand how configuration files work.

You are twisting my words, I only described a problem with website configurations. And since today ASP.NET, MVC are among the most frequently used platforms within .NET, it makes it the most relevant.

You might wanna take a look at what Microsoft has been doing in the time you've been away. They might be slow but they are doing some things right.

Thank you, but no. I gave .NET 10 years of my professional life, and I'm not going back to it. For me it died in 2014.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

I never said it does.


I only picked one from the top of my head.



You are twisting my words, I only described a problem with website configurations. And since today ASP.NET, MVC are among the most frequently used platforms within .NET, it makes it the most relevant.



Thank you, but no. I gave .NET 10 years of my professional life, and I'm not going back to it. For me it died in 2014.

You can use JSON configuration files right now with ASP.Net MVC applications. I'm not trying to get you to do anything. I just don't think you make a very strong case for giving up .NET all together. The one complaint you give was all I had to go on.

 

[VitalyT]

I just don't think you make a very strong case for giving up .NET all together.

The existing alternatives are significantly better - free, open-source, with huge community support.

I am an active developer on GitHub.com, and if you are not, you let all the fun in software development world pass you by.

By comparison, .NET with their nuget.org is like a dinosaur today. It gets beaten by npmjs.org 10 times over. And the former continues losing its market share to the latter.

This is the age of social coding, and I love it. There was no such thing with Microsoft, ever.

 

[EClyde]

I can't program the remote but I enjoy reading what you guys write. It's some skill in my book

 

[Darth Shiv]

Firstly, .NET doesn't equate to developing web-sites.

I never said it does.

You speak about one issue that is bad.

I only picked one from the top of my head.

I'm not sure if you meant to say that 90% of developers don't understand how configuration files work.

You are twisting my words, I only described a problem with website configurations. And since today ASP.NET, MVC are among the most frequently used platforms within .NET, it makes it the most relevant.

Not only is ASP.NET the most used but the trend is only going further in that direction. Wholeheartedly agree. You look at the jobs market and the direction of platforms and web/cloud is 90+% of the future workforce if not already.

You might wanna take a look at what Microsoft has been doing in the time you've been away. They might be slow but they are doing some things right.

As far as programming frameworks, they did well on .NET for desktop applications but every other recent framework has basically been a failure. WPF didn't suit low power and is on life support. Silverlight? Heh. Metro? The Unified Windows Platform - doesn't work on Win7 which has the majority of desktop market share. Honestly why would anyone invest in a Microsoft exclusive platform which is an incredible risk rather than go to a platform that reaches the entire ecosystem of every device like a web based platform? Sure Win10 is looking ok for future but web works on iOS, OSX, Windows, Android, anything. And Microsoft has no presence in smartphones and tablets so UWP has zero value there.

 

[LaidbackDev]

Firstly, .NET doesn't equate to developing web-sites.

I never said it does.

You speak about one issue that is bad.

I only picked one from the top of my head.

I'm not sure if you meant to say that 90% of developers don't understand how configuration files work.

You are twisting my words, I only described a problem with website configurations. And since today ASP.NET, MVC are among the most frequently used platforms within .NET, it makes it the most relevant.

Not only is ASP.NET the most used but the trend is only going further in that direction. Wholeheartedly agree. You look at the jobs market and the direction of platforms and web/cloud is 90+% of the future workforce if not already.

You might wanna take a look at what Microsoft has been doing in the time you've been away. They might be slow but they are doing some things right.

As far as programming frameworks, they did well on .NET for desktop applications but every other recent framework has basically been a failure. WPF didn't suit low power and is on life support. Silverlight? Heh. Metro? The Unified Windows Platform - doesn't work on Win7 which has the majority of desktop market share. Honestly why would anyone invest in a Microsoft exclusive platform which is an incredible risk rather than go to a platform that reaches the entire ecosystem of every device like a web based platform? Sure Win10 is looking ok for future but web works on iOS, OSX, Windows, Android, anything. And Microsoft has no presence in smartphones and tablets so UWP has zero value there.

I feel the same way, MS is a bit behind. But with the current development right now like .NET Core to make it cross platforms and open source which is nice. I feel that when it is ready and out to be fully functional, the trend will be different. :-(

 

[encrypt]

Just like .NET for Linux and OS X, Microsoft is 10 years too late to the party with its Powershell. At this point it is irrelevant.

The .NET market of software developers will continue shrinking, there is no stopping it. And those who have moved away from .NET aren't looking back. And I'm talking from personal experience. I dumped .NET in 2014, after using it for 10 years, and good riddance.

Why? I've always thought .NET was a pretty good programming framework. What are you using to replace it and on what platform?

I signed up just to ask the same question, out of interest which language did you move to from .net?

 

[encrypt]

Just like .NET for Linux and OS X, Microsoft is 10 years too late to the party with its Powershell. At this point it is irrelevant.

The .NET market of software developers will continue shrinking, there is no stopping it. And those who have moved away from .NET aren't looking back. And I'm talking from personal experience. I dumped .NET in 2014, after using it for 10 years, and good riddance.

Why? I've always thought .NET was a pretty good programming framework. What are you using to replace it and on what platform?

I signed up just to ask the same question, out of interest which language did you move to from .net?

-- Sorry Just noticed your reply about

 

[Raoul Duke]

"Satya Nadella’s vision of an open, customer-centric company that’s willing to work with the competition"
I'm wondering in what universe MS could be described, with a straight face, as 'customer-centric'
If MS gets into Linux, I'll be worried they will find some way to come up with a Linux OS, copyright it and drive all the open source distro's out of existence.
But that's just me.

 

[Teko03]

"Satya Nadella’s vision of an open, customer-centric company that’s willing to work with the competition"
I'm wondering in what universe MS could be described, with a straight face, as 'customer-centric'
If MS gets into Linux, I'll be worried they will find some way to come up with a Linux OS, copyright it and drive all the open source distro's out of existence.
But that's just me.

In THIS universe, a change in CEO can go along way....Nadella has taken a significant change in direction when compared to Gates & Ballmer.