Don Jones - Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches

Way back in 2012, some six years after Windows PowerShell was born, Jeff and I wrote Learn Windows PowerShell Toolmaking in a Month of Lunches. The word toolmaking was important to us. My first job out of high school was working as an aircraft mechanic, and one of the first trades I was exposed to was the machine shop. Imagine a hot, humid warehouse in Norfolk, Virginia, full of noisy machines chipping away at chunks of metal. Machinists would spend hours, sometimes, setting up a milling machine with various tools and diesfancy drill and router bits, basicallythat would carve a block of metal into a useful aircraft part. You went home with your hair full of metal chips, your skin covered in lubricants, and your ears ringing from all the noise. I swore I didnt want to become one of these tool users. Of course someone has to wield the tools, and theres nothing wrong with it. I just didnt want it to be me.

But tucked away at the back of the warehouse was a small, enclosed, air-conditioned office. The men and women there wore dress shirts and sat in front of computers all day, designing the tools and dies the machinists used. These tool and die makers, or toolmakers, got paid more, had a better work environment, and generally hadin my post-teenager viewbetter lives. I promised myself that in order to escape my personal hellhole of a workplace, Id work hard to become one of them.

That attitude served me well after I shifted into IT a few years later. As a LAN manager for a Bell Atlantic subsidiary (its part of Verizon, now), my help desk and Tier 2 guys brought me plenty of problems to solve, and my solution almost every time was to write a script for them. That way, those tool users could solve problems on their own, and I could act as a force multiplier, enabling them to solve problems rather than spending all my time solving them. Making tools for others is, in many ways, the highest IT calling for me, and Ive devoted significant effort to making sure I was always in that kind of enabler position. Plus, I dont get calls from users or late-night pagesbonus!

Candidly, this books titleLearn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunchesis a total search engine optimization ploy. People search for PowerShell Scripting a lot more than PowerShell Toolmaking. But now that you have the book in your hands, physically or digitally, know that Jeff and I are going to try and make you a toolmaker, not just a scripter. If youre not sure what the difference is, dont worryitll become clearer as you go. Weve rewritten this entire book, dropped content that strayed away from toolmaking, and added contentlike automated testing, publishing your code, and so onthat sits firmly within the realm of toolmaking. Weve taken everything weve learned in the last four or five years and brought it to this new title. Our goal is to make you the best toolmaker you can possibly be, to make you a force multiplier within your organization, and to put your career on the firmest footing possible. Thanks for joining us, and enjoy the ride.

D ON J ONES