The Future of PowerShell is in the Youth

I love PowerShell. It has been the single most important skill I have learned in my career as it has allowed me to benefit and grow financially and skill-wise. I care deeply about the community and perhaps more importantly about the future of this beloved language.

Starting at the next PowerShell Summit in Bellvue, the DevOps Collective will be doing an OnRamp program for IT beginners who want to learn PowerShell. I could not be happier for this as it will be instrumental in continuing the growth and adoption of PowerShell. For the PowerShell community it is important that we seek the youth to adopt PowerShell, it is the only way we can ensure its survival in the coming years or decades.

The kids who are just now starting to learn computers are going to seek to learn their first language. At that point is where we want PowerShell to be an attractive option. We want these kids to say “Hey this language is cross-platform and it’s really easy to use!”. Lets be honest, in terms of a shell, bash on Linux is probably the front runner right now. Linux is free, bash is the default shell. If PowerShell is going to continue to grow and be adopted by the youth, it has to used by kids when they are young and when they are beginning in their quest to learn. PowerShell has largely been adopted by veteran Windows-only IT professionals because there was nothing like it before and it was so easy to see its benefit. Sure, VBScript and bat files worked, but the learning curve was steep and it was never cross-platform. For those of us who know PowerShell, we know that is is WAY better than anything else on Windows.

To date the smartest thing Microsoft has done with PowerShell has made it cross-platform because it is now a viable option as a scripting language on Linux and MacOS… but not so much for experienced professionals, for beginners. If PowerShell is ever going to be truly adopted on Linux, it MUST be used by the novice user. The truth is, the vast majority of experienced Linux pros, don’t need it or don’t want it. I don’t believe that is going to change. The future is in the hands of the current community and next generation to adopt it. Eventually, our generation will be dead and gone, and PowerShell with it unless it takes a market share on Linux.

At this point you may say “Well what about Windows?”. I am not very optimistic about the future of the Windows operating system. I would not be surprised if it no longer exists in about 15-20 years. I won’t go into why, but that’s just my opinion. Which makes the adoption on PowerShell on Linux an absolute must for its survival.

Our job is to pass on this tool to the next generation. Blog about it. Talk about it. Speak about it. Write cross-platform modules. Teach the youth. The time is now.