I’m in the process of constructing a new, advanced book on Windows PowerShell, which I’ve mentioned before. This time, I’m going to try something I’ve never tried with a book before: Making it more of a community effort.
Not so much “community” in the sense that I’m expecting you to help write it, but “community” in the sense of involving you – the community – from the get-go, starting with the Table of Contents.
A while back, I asked you what you considered “Advanced,” so I’m back with a preliminary Table of Contents, and I’d like your feedback. What’s missing? What do you think is “out of bounds” that’s listed here? I’ll continue to revise this throughout future blog posts, using your feedback to fine-tune the TOC further and further so that it’ll be the perfect book for you.
(PS – ignore the “chapter numbers” for now – this is just a numbered list in no particular order at the moment)
- Cmdlet and Snap-In Development
- Accessing Databases
- The Windows PowerShell Pipeline in Depth
- Extending Windows PowerShell’s Type System
- Creating Custom Windows PowerShell Formats
- .NET Framework Crash Course / Leveraging the Framework in Windows PowerShell
(would touch on using Windows Forms, for example)
Right now this isn’t – believe it or not – really a full-sized book; so tell me what’s missing. My goal is to keep this focused on sys admins, not developers, although I realize “cmdlet development” definitely toes that line a lot – my intent with that chapter would be a solid introduction with some good, short examples – essentially a way of quickly creating simple cmdlets; a more complex cmdlet just demands more in the way of .NET development which is a tad beyond the sys admin scope.
Thoughts? Drop a comment in and let me know what you think. If you’ve ever complained that a book doesn’t cover exactly what you want, this is your chance – get in on the ground floor!
That looks like a good start! I wonder if *official* providers for Access and SQL are in the works at Microsoft. Once a provider has been created, I’d see database related stuff being much easier, and not something worthy of being in an ‘advanced’ book…
I don’t think so. Databases aren’t heirarchical stores, which is what providers are mainly intended to browse. Also, I’d think there would be some significant overhead in keeping that kind of connection open to the database – plus, it’s just not an efficient way to work with bulk data. ADO.NET works great and isn’t that difficult, and is much more suitable for working with batches of data.
How about ‘creating and managing custom objects’? Perhaps that will be in your ‘pipeline’ section though?
For IT System Administrators, a chapter or two focusing on the day to day management tasks that can be automated would certainly convince many to take a serious look at scripting with PowerShell.
Focusing on the newer PowerShell-aware/enabled applications such as Exchange 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager is key, but demonstrating how PowerShell can also be effectively used for existing products would be a welcome addition (such as Exchange 2003 as blogged by Jeffrey).