So if you follow my posts, one thing you will know about me is that I like learning new things and picking up skills.
Through my whole time of working with vSphere, I have used PowerCLI in one way or another. I can muddle my way around a bit, but it has always niggled at me that I don’t know it as well as I could.
When people were talking about scripting or sharing their scripts, I could barely follow along, and that to me is very annoying. I always at least want to have a solid base understanding.
So I finally got around to buying this book and using it. Whenever you ask around about learning PowerShell, EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY says to start with this book.
After working through it, I see why!
Whether you come with some solid knowledge, no knowledge or a random mix like me, you will learn everything in a solid structured way, where every chapter builds on the previous one.
The structure and flow are perfect. there are labs at the end for you to work on too. Each chapter is designed to be done in an hour lunch break. I found it was actually talking me longer, especially with the labs too.
Whenever I had a few questions, I could ask the scripting guy at work and the vExpert slack has a #powercli channel too, what you find is that people like sharing and discussing the finer points of scripting and I would get some solid responses on certain things I was trying to get my head around!
In general, when people see you are trying to understand and learn, and are going to the effort to have a go, I have found that they are more than willing to help. The same is true for me, if someone reaches out for help, I expect them to have had a go themselves in some way and not just given up and just hoping for a handout!
You only need a Windows machine with PowerShell ISE installed to work through the book.
I am going to preach what everyone else preaches and say, if you want to learn the basics of PowerShell this is the book you need in your life, no doubt about it!
The real start is all about how to use PowerShell Help properly, I was in awe of the detailed help you could get! Using -ShowWindow to put the help contents into a pop-out window, has been fantastic!
Then it showed me all about Get-Member. Show-Object, Where-Object, Sort-Object. As I was working through the chapters and using these things, I could finally understand things I had seen used in scripts and I could follow the flow much better! The book makes a good reference book, when you need to go back and double check something too.
Everything transfers quite well into PowerCLI too. I have tried a few things about. Now the thing I am finding is that I need to level up again and move into PowerShell Scripting, as that is where the fun happens.
Good thing they have a book for that too! Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches
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