>If all programs I'm connecting are .NET based and hence share a common type system
Well to set it apart from C#/F#, Powershell is dynamically typed, so you don't have to bother with the types of your objects.
To set it apart from Ironpython/ruby, or any other dynamic languages on the CLR, Powershell is made to be a shell scripting language. It means that tasks common in system administration are made to be simplified, that command to deal with the filesystem, processes, services and anything else on the system are builtins, and that it interacts very well with other apps, all things that are definitely not true with python or ruby. ipython brings you an inch closer, but with powershell you have the full thing.
> Apart from that, the power of the Unix shell isn't primarily the shell scripting language itself. It is the design of the programs it connects. You need small programs that do one thing.
Well those programs (grep, awk, sed, cat, and many others) are meant to be used in a shell environnement.
With powershell, most if not all of the utility of those commands is replicated in equivalent commands. Those are not binary executables, but built-ins commands. But you can add new ones very easily, by coding them in powershell itself and adding them to your environnement in a way that has been thought out for that very purpose. I see no diminution in power, quite the contrary.
But i see no real interrest in preaching to somebody who has already made up his mind. All i can say is, if you have the occasion to try it extensively, you really might change your mind on the subject :)
Well to set it apart from C#/F#, Powershell is dynamically typed, so you don't have to bother with the types of your objects.
To set it apart from Ironpython/ruby, or any other dynamic languages on the CLR, Powershell is made to be a shell scripting language. It means that tasks common in system administration are made to be simplified, that command to deal with the filesystem, processes, services and anything else on the system are builtins, and that it interacts very well with other apps, all things that are definitely not true with python or ruby. ipython brings you an inch closer, but with powershell you have the full thing.
> Apart from that, the power of the Unix shell isn't primarily the shell scripting language itself. It is the design of the programs it connects. You need small programs that do one thing.
Well those programs (grep, awk, sed, cat, and many others) are meant to be used in a shell environnement. With powershell, most if not all of the utility of those commands is replicated in equivalent commands. Those are not binary executables, but built-ins commands. But you can add new ones very easily, by coding them in powershell itself and adding them to your environnement in a way that has been thought out for that very purpose. I see no diminution in power, quite the contrary.
But i see no real interrest in preaching to somebody who has already made up his mind. All i can say is, if you have the occasion to try it extensively, you really might change your mind on the subject :)