RPGDevNet

Ah, the good old days

By Eduardo Ross

It is very hard to break preconceived notions on any reality around us. As a species, we can sure get set in our ways. Being set in my ways makes it hard for me to deal with IBM's ongoing changes and transformations. In the late 80s IBM was a corporation that derived most of its revenue from hardware sales. I cut my teeth in the midrange community on that IBM business model.

Over the last several years, IBM has gone through a conscious transformation from being a hardware-based company to one based mostly on services. This transformation hasn’t been a secret. For quite a while now IBM has been telling its investors, and anyone else who would listen, that the future was in services. But for those of us who grew up with the old hardware-based IBM, the change is hard to accept because it requires us to change our mindset and perception of IBM. Perhaps making the change even harder to accept is the fact that we also must acknowledge that certain platforms that are so dear to us may no longer play a pivotal role in IBM’s future.

I was reminded of this transformation while reading Jeffrey O’Brien’s article IBM's grand plan to save the planet. O’Brien presents CEO Sam Palmisano’s strategy to put IBM’s best assets to work for IBM and for humanity. By applying the deep research capabilities within the company’s labs and the services arm built over the last decade, IBM can tackle problems that no one else can; problems such as managing a city’s vehicle traffic or tracing the flow of food from production to consumer’s tables. When IBM talks about services don’t think that it means traditional IT services engagements. IBM wants the lucrative services end of the spectrum and that means focusing on projects where there will be low competition. The bet is that IBM’s brainiac researchers give the company the edge it needs over its competitors.

It appears that shifting to services has been a great strategy for IBM and is a good use of the assets it’s accumulated over the years. However, accepting this new phase in IBM leaves one longing for the good ol’ days when the AS/400 was an important part of IBM’s formula for success.

PowerShell

by Eduardo Ross

OS/400’s CL was one of the many things that impressed me when I was introduced to the AS/400. Comparing the old DOS bat programming ‘language’ or the UNIX shells to the well organized CL was like comparing a Taco Bell beef taco to the succulent Tacos Al Carbón from Las Palapas.

In the fourth quarter of 2006, Microsoft introduced the Windows PowerShell, a command line shell and task-based scripting technology to replace the old bat type scripting. The second version of PowerShell is now part of Windows Server 2008 and of the future release of Windows 7.

While designing the new shell, MS developers looked at the diverse shells from UNIX but they also looked at the command languages of different platforms including CL from the AS/400 and claim that it is as industrial strength as CL. When looking at some of the characteristics of PowerShell you can see that MS has definitely created something that goes beyond cshell or kshell, although all the expected features of these kinds of shells are still present in PowerShell, features like piping the output of a command to the next or redirecting input or output.

Those familiar with CL will recognize some PowerShell facilities, albeit implemented with very modern designs and techniques. PowerShell insists that you name your commands or utilities (called “cmdlets”) consistently using a verb followed by a noun; furthermore, it insists that the verb be selected from a small group of verbs. Looking internally you can recognize a modern version of the LDA in the form of a Session (like the one found in ASP) and a job log. Cmdlets are built by creating classes and the definition of parameters to these commands is well defined and not as arbitrary as in the times of DOS or in the UNIX world. PowerShell programs can be run locally or remotely.

PowerShell provides an environment that makes Windows a better platform for running Batch applications and for administrators to be more productive in managing the servers providing the computing resources to IT departments.

Additional resources:

The Windows PowerShell team blog

Open source PowerShell GUI

PowerGUI video tutorial

[Photo credit: Wikipedia]