Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows PowerShell Programming for the Absolute Beginner

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a server administrator who is responsible for managing a group of servers running a wide range of operating systems including Windows, Linux, and (unfortunately) SCO UNIX. I just received my copy of this new book in the mail yesterday evening and began working with it today on our Windows 2003 development server. In my opinion, the book serves the PowerShell beginner very well by providing many simplified, but logically constructed examples that illustrate how basic cmdlets are used. From the material I have covered thus far, I believe the information is very straightforward in its approach to using the PowerShell. Overall, the book is well organized with each chapter covering a specific logical topic along with examples to that end that are easy for the beginner to understand and apply. The use of developing games to teach the concepts is also a novell idea, although some of the examples are a bit lengthy. In conclusion, while I have not yet completed this book I can already say that I am very satisfied with my purchase and would highly recommend it to any PowerShell beginner out there.

This is an excellent beginner's book for someone new to PowerShell. I had been playing with PowerShell for a few months before starting this book. Up to and including chapter 7 was mostly a review for me of things I already knew, but chapters 8, 9, 10 had some additional information and insight into things that I found valuable. I'm glad I purchased this book, and find definitly like the layout of the book for someone new to PowerShell.

I have been looking forward to diving into PowerShell, as it takes advantage of the .NET framework and object-based scripting...exposing much more to a Microsoft systems engineer/Windows administrator than is available using VBScript.

I found myself zipping and/or skipping through the majority of this book. I guess I was expecting more references to actual administrative scripting, rather than simple game examples that just seemed to take up too many pages and was a real filler.

Bottom line: This is truely for the beginner. If you have experience in VBScript, and you know the scope of your scripting task and what to "google" for, save your money for a more advanced book.

It can be a coin toss, "for beginners" books can be real dogs - definitely not the case here. As the book title says, anyone who wants to get on the PowerShell (PS) bandwagon, even with absolutely no prior scripting experience, can start here and take away a solid understanding of the basics of PS general shell usage as well as scripting, and begin implementing what they have learn in a production environment. Even if you're familiar with other scripting languages, this title is still an excellent resource for introducing yourself to PS and making the "this is how you did it in [x]; this is how you do it in PS" connections.

This certainly won't be your last purchase for PS skill development; the underlying technology is just too vast to be covered in a book of this nature. But don't let that and the relatively small size of this title deter you from reading. Included is everything needed to learn the basics, from command and function listings, syntax overviews, and examples, to learn-as-you-go PS script creation tasks to help you solidify what you've just read about. After you've learned the basics, you are then given real-life administrative examples and information to get you on your way. Best part is that after you have read the book, it is set up well enough to serve as a reference guide until you have mastered this level.

I admit, this review maybe a little biased, because I do have some programming experience, but I didn't have any powershell experience so I bought this and the Manning book in the amazon package deal. This book is what it says, for absolute beginners. It babies you through gaming examples more so by throwing code at you and hoping you pick it up, as opposed to explaining what is really going on. Also, half the pages are filled with charts and lists of powershell commands that our easily accessible using powershell itself. Additionally, the book does not focus on any of the more intermediate topics except for a 10 page or so focus on system administration. In all reality, if you have no programming experience at all, this is the book for you. If you have used the command line extensively and/or any scripting language (or really any language), get the Manning book and don't waste your time with this one.

I got this book a couple of weeks ago and I'm going through it a page at a time. This book has been a fantastic resource for me to learn Powershell. I would recommend it for everyone does not yet understand Powershell and has very little programming experience.

This book has helped me pick up this language and go from trying to pick my way through scripts to understand how to do something, to actually scripting my own concepts and needs. It does not cover a lot of the advanced topics in books like "Windows Powershell in Action" by Bruce Payette (which I recommend highly but only for someone with more experience) but it wasn't meant to.

This has been a great resource for me.

Hope this helps

I took this book up in hopes it would provide the trail of breadcrumbs needed for an absolute beginner to learn the basics of Powershell. Instead I tossed in the towel half way through chapter 4.

Jerry Lee Ford's disjointed presentation style was somewhat difficult to follow and often presented examples of things only to be partly explained several chapters later.

Additionally, there were too many times where he would introduce several new concepts in a script example only to explain one or two of them, and then only to say how it might be useful for yada, yada.

System admins considering a more comprehensive entry level Powershell book should instead consider Professional Windows PowerShell by Andrew Watt. It does a much better job of setting a foundation, but I would not call that book non-developer per se, as an aptitude for development is prerequisite for scripting.

This book is pretty well laid out. When I say beginner, I mean someone who is familiar with vbscript, Vb, etc. It gives a great introduction to powershell and then gradually builds up the reader's skill level using powershell. Of course, with any programming language you will have to practice. I believe this book is worth purchasing. The reason I gave it 3 stars...I don't have anything else to compare it to you. I probably won't either, because MS pretty much has every reference to a command etc. on it's support website. Also as with vbscript, once you understand the language.. you can always Google an example and use it as a baseline to produce a script.

This is a perfect book for a beginner in the Windows PowerShell. If gives you the absolute basics and lets you learn by example. I liked it. It was the perfect book before I went to the Windows PowerShell in Action to further my knowledge.

I like the simple approach and it's very easy to understand. I'm learning a lot on how PowerShell works just by reading few pages of it. I normally don't give review or comment but I'm giving this book - thumbs-up.