this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
75 points (100.0% liked)

Programmer Humor

39058 readers
194 users here now

Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)

Rules:

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Warning: This article contains swearing (Quoted, from Bill Gates).

As a UNIX-aligned engineer, I've always looked down on anything Microsoft.

But a recent cross-platform project forced me to learn PowerShell — a technology which, just like blockchain, is amusing by how its core idea almost makes sense.

I want to explore the psychological impact that a piece of documentation had on me. A political piece on par with Machiavelli, "The Monad Manifesto."

top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The thing I never understood about PowerShell is that it's partially more verbose than C#, which is one of the most verbose programming languages in existence. It just feels like you might as well go for a full-fledged programming language at that point.

The appeal of Bash et al is that the scripting is almost the same as the interactive usage, which you already know. But because PowerShell is so verbose, I'm really not sure people do use it interactively.

I guess, that code snippet in the article makes somewhat of a difference, in that PowerShell offers better features for interop between processes. But man, that still feels like it could've been a library instead...

[–] LwL@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Powershell is nice for scripting things close to the (windows) OS. But (granted I'm not exactly some PS wizard, I've just used it a few times for minor things at work) I agree it often feels unnecessarily verbose and cumbersome. For example the fact that you need to define a whole function to alias even just a single command with parameters. And just overall I find it very hard to read (though maybe that's on the guy that did the powershell stuff before me, I don't have great sample size here).

But I'll take what I can get.

[–] underscores@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

PowerShell is fantastic in practice but whenever I think of writing shell scripts I think of bash first.

Bash is a lot more pleasant to work with overall, the biggest concern most people have is that it can be cryptic. IMO PowerShell scripts can be the exact same kind of voodoo.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 42 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Bill Gates walked into the meeting “riding high” because he acquired patents for malaria treatments. Reality beats satire every time.

Bill Gates will never be a good guy.

[–] sepi@piefed.social 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which Bill Gates got your attention? Epstein Island Bill or Embrace/Extend/Extinguish Bill? Either way, not a good look.

[–] Tangentism@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You forgot the Bill "now the largest owner of arable land in the US" Gates

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago

aka hide your fortune from taxes in a charity bill

Good post. Definitely worth the read. Essentially: “how to convince execs who think they know more than they do that something is not only a good idea, but also their good idea”

that was a fun read and I appreciate the guy's sarcasm in all of it. I can only imagine what that meeting with Gates was like.

[–] calidris@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

PowerShell isn't that bad. Yeah I said it.

[–] AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 day ago

It’s downright good. Don’t even need to drop another programming language for more complex tasks.

[–] majster@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

one liners can get pretty verbose, but it scripts nicely

[–] calidris@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Agreed. I almost exclusively run scripts.

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago

If we can get rid of MS and keep PS as a community project, that'd be nice.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Warning: This article contains swearing (Quoted, from Bill Gates).

If you're in IT and bad words offend you, fuck off. It's a requirement.

[–] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 day ago

This attitude is precisely why I didn't end up in IT. :)