Preface

I have a unique outlook on scripting. In my first career as an aircraft mechanic, I worked with machinists—folks who used tools and dies to carve metal into aircraft parts. A step above machinist, career-wise, was the tool and die maker. Those were the highly-trained folks who actually created the tools and dies used by machinists. Folks aspired to be toolmakers, as they were nicknamed, because it was considered a bit cushier job. You didn’t work on the hot shop floor around screaming machines and flying shards; you worked in a cool office, on a computer-aided design (CAD) station. You wore nicer clothes.

It turns out that PowerShell can be treated in much the same way. Imagine working in a nice, cool office, with no users demanding your attention. You cruise through your organization’s help desk ticketing system, looking for recurring problems that eat up a lot of time, or that end up having to be solved by higher-tier technical staffers. You write tools, in PowerShell, to solve those problems. You deploy those tools to the help desk and your lower-tier colleagues. They can now solve those problems more quickly and more consistently—and with less involvement from you. Your job is cushier. Maybe you get paid more, too. Sounds awesome, right?