ltldogg

Hi,

I'm a noob/wannabe scriptor and have a few questions:

I need to learn how to batch commands to create/modify/edit/delete LDAP,
Exchange 07, etc. objects/containers/permissions to make my job faster. I
was wondering which language should I learn to do this? As I understand it,
I could do this with DOS, vbs, javascript, pearl and now PowerShell. I would
like to learn just one language as a primary going forward and I'm guessing
PowerShell would be the best bet, but not sure. I have played around in all
the languages a little and I can read most code and understand what it is
doing, but I don't yet have the knowledge to write script code from the
ground up. I am really liking PowerShell, but wonder if it is broad enought
to cover all the scripting I will need to do in my admin role.

So any opinions/feedback is welcome as to which language I should learn
going forward to help me with my batch scripting.

Thanks in advance!

kuma

Powershell is specifically targetted towards system administrators.
While you can use other scripting languages to perform many of the
same tasks, I've found most of them can be done faster and with less
work with powershell. Just my 2 cents.

al dunbar

On Jul 16, 4:47 am, Ltldogg <Ltld...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

Powershell is specifically targetted towards system administrators.
While you can use other scripting languages to perform many of the
same tasks, I've found most of them can be done faster and with less
work with powershell. Just my 2 cents.
===> and further to that, the management interface to Exchange 2007 was
written in powershell, and any changes you make are displayed for you in
powershell code, making it (apparently) very easy to learn how to automate
tasks to manage exchange.

/Al

ltldogg

Thanks to both. I was hoping for that answer and will go forward learning
Powershell!

jaco niemand

Yes, Powershell seems to be a good scripting language. I will say learn
Vbscript and then go to Powershell on a later date. The transition between
the two is not that difficult and WMI is working the same in both scripting
language. There's not a lot of support/articles on Powershell at present
because it is still new. Vbscript can also do a lot more than Powershell.

al dunbar

I expect that that last sentence will result in a fair amount of debate, so
I'll start it off by asking you to name three things that vbscript can do
that powershell cannot. And then I'll mention a few things that powershell
can do that vbscript cannot:

- powershell commands can be entered and executed interactively, something
like batch code, whereas vbscript can only be run from a file where it is
stored.
- it can perform file management functions without your script having to
explicitly create an instance of a COM object such as FSO.
- since the exchange management interface was written in powershell, any
administrative functions you perform interactively with the interface can
be easily scripted, as the interface allows you to capture the code used so
you can adapt it.

The two languages are quite different, and this results in significant
functional differences. If you are very familiar with vbscript you might
tend to try to do things the same way in powershell. But just as with spoken
languages, one does one's best work not by working in one and translating it
to the other, but by actually thinking in terms of the targe language. /Al

<SNIP>