[arch-general] Opinions on PowerShell?

[Eli Schwartz]

On 08/19/2016 02:06 PM, Leonid Isaev wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 07:31:03PM +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:
>> On 08/19/2016 03:28 AM, Hunter Connelly via arch-general wrote:
>>> Bash:        ls -l | sed 's/ \+/,/g' | cut -d',' -f 5,9 | sort -g | tail -3
>>
>> -->            ls -sS | head -4 | tail -3
>>
>>> PowerShell:  ls -file | sort -pr length | select length, name -l 3
> 
> Since when ls(1) et al are a part of bash? Are you guys comparing apples with
> oranges, i.e. bash + coreutils and powershell? 
> 

I think the original point by Hunter Connelly was that PowerShell uses
.NET objects, versus bash as a text stream-based shell.

So apparently, because there is no "find the largest three files"
utility, bash requires ridiculous workarounds like parsing the output of
`ls` and piping it through four different tools for filtering text.

But PowerShell can be told how to treat objects in one or two
easily-decipherable (but verbose) commands.

...

We now have multiple disproofs that show how bash does not suffer for
its textness and lack of objects...
Because `ls` has its own ability to format *and sort* by name +
filesize. But I still prefer the elegance of `find`. Especially the fact
that `find` can specify depth and exclude directories.

In short, we don't need (verbose) PowerShell objects if we actually know
how to use (non-verbose) coreutils properly, therefore bash suffices.

Since bash is more pleasant to type than PowerShell (in the opinion of
many, please no one respond just to point out that *they* prefer
PowerShell) and bash has been used, on all OSes, for a lot longer...
And it is just as capable, if you know what you are doing...

PowerShell has no real justification for catching on in a major way.
Except for people who already use PowerShell on Windows, especially to
manage Windows computers from Linux rather than having to use PowerShell
in a Windows VM.

...

Many people will dislike PowerShell merely because it comes from
Microsoft, and there is a lot of well-deserved dislike and mistrust for
anything Microsoft offers, I am sure a lot of people will not want it in
the AUR. But anyone can contribute to the AUR, even Microsoft
themselves... so they will just have to live with it.

On pure practicality, I doubt it will gain enough popularity to earn a
TU sponsorship into [community]. So really, stop worrying about it,
y'all. ;)

-- 
Eli Schwartz