Your condescension is unwelcome and wrong besides. I've been using PowerShell since it was called Monad. I am a former Mono contributor and have been using .NET for about a decade--I understand both the APIs and the underlying runtimes, not quite as well as I know the JVM, but close. Despite a strong understanding of both the underlying architecture and the language in question, every time I am forced into using it I have the sinking feeling that my hands are being made stupid in comparison to the ease of exploration of other REPL-based systems, be they zsh/bash/whatever or even just Ruby.
I wouldn't dislike PowerShell as intensely as I do if I didn't know it. It's a convergence of bad design in the small--the grammar and the syntax--and in the large--how exploratory programming at a REPL is actually done. Maybe it's great for sysadmin work where something's on fire and must be addressed right-then-and-there, but I'm a programmer and I work to eliminate the need for sysadmin anythings. A shell is literally just a REPL for recording tasks for automation and desperately needs to not suck at that job.
Comparing it to zah/bash and ruby illustrates my point. It's got some fundamental differences to those environments. Providing a common argument parser is one. PowerShell is actually more than a Shell. Its an environment that can be hosted in a shell. That's my point. Commands are actually objects that are processed by the environment. If you get passed the "I know how things are supposed to work" attitude and look at how PS is meant to be used to administer a large number of windows systems you would see that it makes quite a bit of sense.
It is different then what you are used to and probably been using since you were in university. I wasn't rude or mean. I certainly can't be as indignant about things as you are while I'm on HN because of the downvote brigade. But hey, like you guys always say...you're right and I'm wrong because you have karma. Honestly, I tend to be pretty sharp when reacting to people as well so I'm trying to not take things as personally.
But your appeal to authority doesn't scare me...I've used stuff for a long time too. I just don't think that I'm better than other people because of it.
Comparing PowerShell to REPL environments that make exploring a problem space easy is illustrating your point? Its differences excuse how tragically bad it is at doing shell things? Maybe I come from a different part of town, but I don't consider that an argument.
The job of "administrator" in an IT shop is a largely make-work one that can be done by automated systems and process-aware developers, and as an infrastructure and automation developer I am working towards that goal. PowerShell makes that harder than it absolutely has to be because of how blindingly difficult it is to actually iterate on a problem in a way that can be factored into a reusable process--the actual hands-on-keyboard experience is so stilted and stupid that finding the solution in the exploratory manner I described is significantly harder than it should be. As I've said elsewhere in this tree, it's easier to just solve a problem in C# than try to explore the space in PowerShell and reify it into a script. That's as scathing an indictment of a programming environment as I can make.
And absolutely nobody says that somebody's right because of karma. I've read through some of your posting history, though, and you go to that well a lot. Consider that maybe nobody likes that you play the oppressed martyr.
I wouldn't dislike PowerShell as intensely as I do if I didn't know it. It's a convergence of bad design in the small--the grammar and the syntax--and in the large--how exploratory programming at a REPL is actually done. Maybe it's great for sysadmin work where something's on fire and must be addressed right-then-and-there, but I'm a programmer and I work to eliminate the need for sysadmin anythings. A shell is literally just a REPL for recording tasks for automation and desperately needs to not suck at that job.