why Unix?

[Yigal Chripun]

On 08/04/2009 17:10, Daniel Keep wrote:
>
> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>> -Steve
>
> This is getting rather inflammatory, so let me clarify a few things.
>
> What Yigal should have said was that when everything is a file, there is
> no API for the CONTENTS of files.  Yes, you can manipulate files, but
> it's a bit like Variants in D: you can't do anything useful with the
> contents unless you specifically know what they are.
>
> Powershell is designed to work with managed (.NET) objects.  It can
> dynamically introspect these objects and pull them apart, mutate them,
> convert them, etc.  Imagine if every file on a UNIX system also carried
> around a reference to its own parser, and a description of how to
> interpret the data.  THAT is what Powershell has over UNIX shells.
>
> For example, the output of the "ls" equivalent is a table of objects.
> By default, it gets toString'd and displayed as a table.  However, you
> can pipe this into a command that reorders columns.  Or sorts.  And you
> don't have to dick about with ensuring the filenames don't contain
> whitespace or newlines because the file names are carried around as
> actual strings that know their own length.
>
> Unlike UNIX, where everything is a file, to powershell everything is an
> object.  So the list command can be used on a directory or on an object
> that is an aggregate of stuff.  For example, you can use powershell to
> browse the registry as if it was just another part of the filesystem.
>
> I won't say that "everything is a file" is a failure, but powershell
> *definitely* exposes a superset of UNIX's functionality.  Anything you
> can do with a UNIX-style environment, powershell can potentially do better.
>
> Microsoft really hit one out of the park with powershell, although it
> remains to be seen if anyone will actually use it.
>
>    -- Daniel.

Thank you. You explained this much better than me. :)