PowerShell

PowerShell is a scripting language and a shell, and a rather good one of each of these things.

Of course neither of these things mean much without context.

Scripting languages are programming languages that are interpreted when they run.

Shells are the surface layer of a language or operating system.

PowerShell - The Scripting Language (The powerful part of PowerShell)

PowerShell, the scripting language, is one of the most interesting creatures into the vast ecosystem of programming.

PowerShell has many unique features, allowing it to do many things no other language can.

Features like:

• An Object Pipeline that lets you send data from step to step.
• An Extended Types System that allows you to customize existing types.
• Cmdlets that let you easily run anything built in PowerShell.
• Extensible Commands that let you run anything else.
• Splatting which allows you to easily pass parameters around.
• An Events Engine that lets you script asynchronously.

PowerShell is written in C#, and anything in .NET can be used in PowerShell.

PowerShell scripts are written in .ps1 files, and can be run inside or outside of the shell.

PowerShell - The Shell

PowerShell comes with it’s own shell.

For Windows PowerShell, that shell is PowerShell.exe, and for PowerShell Core, the shell is pwsh.

PowerShell.exe will only run on Windows, and has been built into Windows since Windows 7.

PowerShell Core is cross platform.

PowerShell (the shell part) can do some nifty things, like:

• Display progress
• Prompt for input (including credentials)
• Confirm impactful decisions
• Tab through commands and parameters