Shell of an Idea: The untold history of PowerShell

by Don Jones

Introduced in 2006, Microsoft's PowerShell made an immediate, positive impact on its server products and in the lives of the people who administer them. The world's first object-oriented shell, the first designed-from-scratch shell for the Windows operating system, and now a cross-platform management shell, PowerShell's technical achievement is significant. It's easy to look at where PowerShell is today, and not realize or remember the long and sometimes-difficult road it took to get there.

What if Microsoft's "next-gen" shell had been nothing more than a port of the Unix KornShell to Windows? What if PowerShell had never become a default, built-in component of the Windows operating system? What if PowerShell had simply been called, "Microsoft Shell?" Yeah, all of those things almost happened.

In the end, the story of PowerShell is less about the technology, and more about the people who brought it to life, and the people who use it every day. It's about how one small band of passionate, crazy people with a vision can bring something wonderful into the world, in small, incremental, deliberate steps. It's about how the right people came together at the right time and did the right thing, and about the enormous community that rallied around them to make the whole thing an incredible success.

Author Don Jones was with PowerShell from the beginning, and through a series of core team interviews, community discussions, and background research, he brings you this: the untold story of PowerShell, a Shell of an Idea.

Genres: Programming, History

195 pages, ebook

About the author

Don Jones has written dozens and dozens of books and ebooks on information technology topics, and is perhaps most well-known in that space for his "Month of Lunches" series, published by Manning. Don's recently branched out into topics like business management, instructional design, and self-improvement/motivational, along with launching books in science fiction and fantasy. Don lives in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, is a huge fan of Disney Parks, and loves Figment best of all.

Reviews

[Koen De Waele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het gaat niet zozeer over de technologie maar wel over de cultuur van, in dit geval Microsoft als techcompany. En zo herkenbaar voor mensen die in grote ondernemingen werken.
Aanrader.

[John Deardurff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The History of PowerShell. Obviously if the title does not give away the book, not sure my review will. It was a bit nostalgic for me to read through the history. Especially, as I lived most of this narrative from the outside as an Exchange consultant, Database Administrator, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. I was also delighted to see my suspicions confirmed that the Exchange team was a leader with PowerShell, just like they were with Azure. I will admit, once it started getting into the actualy development of PowerShell, I got lost in the weeds a little. But, I'm sure those developers out there will really enjoy that section.

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyable read. I've really fallen in love with PowerShell over the past 7 years, and getting to fully understand the behind-the-scenes of how it came into being was fun, enlightening, inspiring and informative.

[Chris Oldwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great write-up on the history of PowerShell and, more importantly, shows the complexities and politics of a massive organisation like Microsoft. I’ll probably file it alongside Showstopper, one of the first books of this kind.

[Steve Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only for PowerShell fanatics

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great history of PowerShell, and I learned a few things!

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome background on the how and why

I've been using Powershell for years, this book gives a great background on the who, how, and why it was done that way. Helped give me a better understanding of something I use almost every day.