Chapter 17. You call this scripting?

 

So far, you could have accomplished everything in this book using PowerShell’s command-line interface. You haven’t had to write a single script. That’s a big deal for me, because I see a lot of administrators initially shy away from scripting, (rightly) perceiving it as a kind of programming, and (correctly) feeling that learning it can sometimes take more time than it’s worth. Hopefully, you’ve seen how much you can accomplish in PowerShell without having to become a programmer.

But at this point, you may also be starting to feel that constantly retyping the same commands, over and over, is going to become pretty tedious. You’re right, so in this chapter we’re going to dive into PowerShell scripting—but we’re still not going to be programming. Instead, we’re going to focus on scripts as little more than a way of saving our fingers from unnecessary retyping.

17.1. Not programming ... more like batch files

17.2. Making commands repeatable

17.3. Parameterizing commands

17.4. Creating a parameterized script

17.5. Documenting your script

17.6. One script, one pipeline

17.7. A quick look at scope

17.8. Lab

17.9. Ideas for on your own