1y ago

Good evening I hate Windows. Yes, I have to do this.

Since people are curious Ill explain why:

I need to build our project from the remote repo using a PowerShell script (.ps1). I’m using Bash in the VSCode terminal, I have to run the .ps1 script in a new Command Prompt because the compilation takes around 5 minutes and I need my terminal for other things. To do this, the only way is to run a batch file that executes the .ps1 script.

Its an automation so I dont need to touch powershell whatsover and remain in bash terminal. Instead of opening several windows, I automated all so it only takes 1 alias to compile my shit.

The compilation also requires several inputs and "Key Presses", so I automated all of that in the Batch file.

53 comments

That sounds like you don't know what you're doing. No offense.
- Fuck man, I don't know what I'm going either.
  
  Damn autocorrect...
- That doesn't make any sense. Why not just use PowerShell directly then? Why use Bash or even command line and a batch file? It sounds to me like you're over-complicating things for nothing and putting the blame on Microsoft for some reason.
  I'm a heavy Bash user myself and often find myself struggling a bit with PowerShell trying to look for equivalent commands. (commandlets?) But, the more I use it, the more I understand how it works and the more I improve my skills at using it.
  I know a lot of people like to shit on Microsoft, but seriously give their PowerShell a chance. It has its strengths. It's especially nice with Oh My Posh running in Windows Terminal.
  
  I have to run the .ps1 script in a new Command Prompt because the compilation takes a few minutes
  I don't follow this reasoning. Is it because you don't want to take over the VSCode terminal with a long command? Couldn't you can open multiple tabs, or run in the background, or use screen/tmux, etc.?
  
  Ich verstehe. Ich würde aber auch einfach nicht Fenster benutzen lül
Please explain why you don’t open powershell and run cmd.exe instead of running bash? This is a strange workaround and doesn’t really make sense.
- Why not just launch it directly but background the process so it doesn't hang up your terminal?
  
  Why not just open another terminal in VSCode?
  You can open as many as you want, and as many types as you want. Bash, PowerShell, Command Prompt... there's zero need to chain multiple just to keep your main one free.
Command prompt is CMD and batch script, Powershell is Pwsh and .ps1, then bash is .sh.
You've confused a few things here..
FYI, open a powershell terminal separately, to the path of your script (powershell in file Explorer path) and run your script.
Do rest of Work in Vscode
Done.
- I use Ansible on WSL to run Powershell scripts on Windows using VSCode. I'm surprised it works as well as it does.
  
  You use Linux to run Ansible to run ps1 on Windows, exactly how it's meant to be used!
U can probably add a couple more layers by sshing into a vm
- Don't forget to run some docker container on that VM, to encapsulate the workload, so it will be: SSH to VM -> open a shell into the container -> run the rest
- Got to at least wrap it up in some python.
  
  Good idea perhaps we can route over tor as well just to maximise latency
My work someone made a robust automated build script, and they left so someone else made a wrapper around it to make it easier to work with, they're gone now and someone wrote a wrapper around that to extend functionality in a backwards compatible way, but it's overly complicated for my minimal use cases so I wrote a batch file to call it with my default settings...
You work a job that uses PowerShell and you refuse to learn or use it. You are creating problems for yourself.
WSL has changed the game pretty significantly, don't you agree? It's not perfect, but allows me to stay firm in my resolve never to learn powershell.
- After learning PowerShell and then moving to Linux and having to learn bash...I don't get this sentiment. PS is the shit. I can make full GUI applications and automate all kinds of workflows. Their use of objects makes it so easy to extract data and utilize it. Bash feels so much more primitive and clumsy by comparison. What am I missing here?
  
  Bash sucks. At best, only use it to pipe commands into each other in the terminal (Or change your shell to something else). For scripting, use Python or something.
  Btw, Powershell runs on Linux if you want that
  
  People use Bash for quick and dirty scripts, because it's pretty much just a few symbols in between all the commands that they know and use all the time anyways. You don't really 'learn' Bash in a dedicated manner, you rather just pick up on tricks and tidbits over years.
  For more than that, you'd use Python, Ruby or a full-fledged programming language.
  Personally, I would even go so far that Powershell hardly added something new that wasn't already covered by a programming language...
  
  Mh, it probably depends a lot where you're coming from. I don't need Powershell or have a reason to learn it in my daily work, and I mostly use WSL to access Linux shells everywhere else. And on top of that, I don't understand why Powershell needs a completely different command set to basically every other shell. It's a biased take, but I have not had an interaction with Powershell that I liked, nor have I seen a feature that made me want to look into it more.
  What's the killer feature, would you say? Care giving me the fanboy-pitch?
  edit. Oh and I forgot, the tab completion in Powershell is so incredibly dumb. I never ever in my life want to cycle through all items in a path, and much less have it be case insensitive. Come to think of it, this might be the origin of most of my disdain. ;)
Another question, why can't you write the compile script in bash?
ChatGPT would make pretty short work of the conversion.
- Until you have it write a github action that uses a bash script to process a directory structure with spaces in the names. Never seen ChatGPT so confused before.
  
  Env variable that problem away if it's from software you don't control, then fix your shit from where you do.
That pic of Willem Dafoe is patently false... no dong hanging
I just threw up while crying
It sounds like your hate in this instance is misplaced, because "someone" set things up in that stupid way.
This is a common issue in software, not limited to scripting. Software are getting more and more layers of wrappers/adapter code, like a Russian doll. It contributes to dependency hell, as each layer brings new dependencies.
Developers often find it easier to wrap existing apps and software, and add another layer on top, rather than improving or replacing what exists.
I use Cygwin in my build system so I don't have to rewrite commands for different systems.
- I'll be checking that out
Therapist: Young Willem Dafoe isn't real, he can't hurt you.
Young Willem Dafoe:
pOwErShEll
How many of them are there in windows nowadays, cmd, pOwershell versions, shell if you use git, ...
I feel your pain
The oola hoops I have to do to optimize my workflow at work is simply legendary, I fkn hate windows.
- The hula hoops are of your own choice/design, I'm sorry to say.

53 comments