PowerShell 4.0 and Desired State Configuration Talk Draws Crowd at TechEd
It wasn't the most prominent topic at this week's TechEd conference in Houston, but PowerShell certainly wasn't left in the dust either. I caught up with Don Jones, author of Redmond magazine's Decision Maker column, after his TechEd session: "A Practical Overview of Desired State Configuration."
We met up at The Scripting Guys booth, where Don was signing copies of the book he coauthored with Jeffery Hicks: "Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches" (Manning 2012). The book sold out at TechEd and Don was inundated with questions ranging from specific scripting practices to IT management issues.
One such question was about how to deal with individuals who aren't on board with the new techniques PowerShell 4.0 introduced such as Desired State Configuration (DSC). Don explained in one of his Decision Maker columns last year that DSC can be disruptive.
"With DSC, you use PowerShell to write very simple (or complex, if you like) declarative scripts," he explained in the column. "Script isn't really the proper word, as there's no actual programming. You're really just building an exaggerated INI-esque file, where you specify configuration items that must or must not be present on a computer."
If you weren't at TechEd, you can view his session on Microsoft's Channel 9. If you want to spend some quality time with Don on the topic, he'll be giving a crash course on PowerShell at our TechMentor conference up in Redmond on the Microsoft campus. Also at TechMentor, which like Redmond magazine is produced by 1105 Media, Don will give a talk on DSC. The conference takes place Aug. 11-15.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 05/16/2014 at 12:36 PM