I’m bit behind the schedule with this event. That happens: life sometimes interferes plans.
Also, today I wanted to focus on two parts of assignment: 20 random users, translating Active Directory date into nice (DateTime) format.
Time to summarize 3rd event of Scripting Games 2013. I must admin – I learn few new tricks while reading entries for this event. But I still see some things I really can’t stand. Especially in beginner category, where many people decided that putting everything in one line makes it “special”. It doesn’t. If you still think it does – read this article by Richard Siddaway. If you still think line break is cursed – read it again. Repeat. 
Looks like we just passed mid-point in Scripting Games 2013, at least for fun part: writing scripts. I must say that I really couldn’t find anything that I’ve seen as “learning experience” in this one – we already did more complex WMI reporting in previous event. We were requested to create very basic HTML report, and we have cmdlet for that. So… I guess I just went lazy with this one. No real error checking, because design claims all have been taken care of. Sweet. 
Have you ever wanted to use splatting outside it’s normal use with PowerShell commands? Splatting is great to pass (named) parameters to commands, but there are other elements that have named parameters. Perfect example: static methods that exist on .NET types. Unfortunately, in current version of PowerShell we can’t extend splatting concept to other language elements. But I guess a lot of people would agree with me: it would be great to be able to do something like:
$ToSplat = @{ format = "Using 'splatting' hashtable: {0:N2} and {1:N3}" args = [math]::PI, [math]::E } [string]::Format(@ToSplat)
It may happen one day, but can we do anything about it now? Well… sure!
OK, I’ve seen your entries, and I must say – in general, I like what I saw. But it wouldn’t be helpful to tap you on the back and pretend everything is perfect, would it?
As previously, I will mention few pain points I’ve seen. I will also try to mention what I liked about entries. Let’s jump to beginner category first.
Now that event 2 is closed for new entries – time to let you guys know how I would do it. Again: feel free to complain, comment, judge. I hope I will show you few tricks here and there that will help you with next event, or at least: will help you understand what you might have done wrong. Not that I’m assuming you did, I just noticed few gotchas in this scenario that I wanted to addresses. Have I succeeded? As you probably already know, there is no definite answer to that question. 
Scripting Games is chance to learn things. You can learn by good example, or by mistakes, but often – mistake for one person is perfect solution for other. In PowerShell there are usually many ways to skin the cat, some of those I like – some, not so much. So what did I like and dislike so far? Here are few notes I made.
I think I blogged about it a while ago, but I still see people who assume that stating that their command SupportsShouldProcess is enough to implement –WhatIf and –Confirm. This is partially true. Namely: –WhatIf part will probably work just fine. Confirm will work fine too most of the time. When it will start to misbehave? When we start to use pipeline, or multiple cmdlets that SupportShouldProcess.
This year judges should focus on blogging. I’ve decided that it may be helpful to give attendees chance to return the favor – I will blog about things I like and dislike in your scripts. At the same time – I will post how I would do it. Feel free to complain, point out mistakes. I will try to post it as soon as entries are closed for submissions, so that I will do it “fresh” before I see any of your scripts – this way I won’t “steal” your ideas. 
PowerShell Web Access is great new feature, that allows us run PowerShell inside web browser. So far I was thinking of it as something that is either save but slightly inconvenient (when we have to connect to constrained endpoint running with RunAs credentials) or slightly insecure with cool features like tab completion and full cmdlet coverage, including all *-Object cmdlets (if we connect with more privileged account to “normal” endpoint). Either – or. But last Friday I came up with idea that can give us a little bit of both. Idea, that I would like to share.
