Comment by Delmania | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Delmania | Hacker News Reader

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> One is always left with the impression Microsoft thinks their users are ignorant, for lack of a better word.

My impression is that these aliases were added so people wouldn't need to install cURL and wget on multiple machines.

> What is amusing to me about this incident is that I imagine Microsoft would argue that "Monad/Powershell" is aimed at its so-called "power users". Apparently these "power users" would not notice or would need something like this?

PowerShell was initially aimed at providing sysadmins a better tool for scripting tasks within Windows. They added aliases to help reduce the mental shift when changing technologies.

> Even if this can be explained away as a purely innocent "mistake", it still says something about the level of attention to detail.

At the time, it was intentional. The reality is when PowerShell was designed, there were no plans to free it and put it online, it was a pure Windows tool. The decision to add aliases made sense.

Yes or no question: Is it deemed too difficult for a user to create their own aliases, based on their own needs?

Why should anyone have to make a "mental shift"? The answer is not because UNIX is incompatible with other systems. The answer is more likely because Microsoft Windows is a proprietary commercial product; its sales and marketing staff have traditonally sought to discredit UNIX. Having followed Windows from 3.11 onwards I would argue that it is "different" and incompatible by design. The "mental shift" is intentional and strategic, but not at all necessary.

Why were there no plans to make PowerShell free and open source and publicly available initially? That's a rhetorical question of sorts.

UNIX as the OS that generally "runs the internet" has become better known and more popular in recent years as a result of several factors. That's why MS has to make the moves they're making. keywords: "has to"

>Yes or no question: Is it deemed too difficult for a user to create their own aliases, based on their own needs?

Are you intentionally trying to be difficult? The answer is of course not, considering there is the New-CmdLet alias. These aliases exist purely as convenience factor.

> Why should anyone have to make that "mental shift"? The answer is not because UNIX is incompatible with other systems. The answer is because Microsoft Windows is a proprietary commercial product and its sales and marketing staff have always sought to discredit UNIX. Having followed Windows from its inception I would argue that it is "different" by design. The "mental shift" is intentional, but not at all necessary.

You followed Window's inception, and this is the best argument you can come up with? A not to subtle attempt to discredit the company? Your answer ignores the fact that Windows was built on top of a DOS derivative and the scripting language for Windows for many years was batch. It was different because it wasn't based on UNIX at the time because Linux was still in development.

>Why were there no plans to make it free and open source and publicly available initially? That's a rhetorical question of sorts.

I'd imagine because it was aimed at people who were managing Windows servers. Considering Linux has a robust set of tools to do that, there would have been no reason to do that.

>As I see it, UNIX as the OS that generally "runs the internet" has become better known and more popular in recent years as a result of several factors. That's why MS has to make the moves they're making. keywords: "has to"

I don't think anyone on this thread would deny that. The question is how is that remotely relevant? Companies have to change strategies in order to respond to the markets they operate in. Companies survive on profits and revenue. It makes sense their actions would be guided by those. Why is this a difficult concept for people to understand?

OK, if you meant going from DOS batch to UNIX sh scripts, i.e., from one scripting language to another, as the "mental shift", then that's fair.

But using an alias for a program that may be called by a script is not going to address that.

A user can just as easily call curl.exe using BAT, WSH, etc., or PS.

As for DOS, keep in mind MS did not even write the software that became MS-DOS; they bought it.

Many believe it was a copy of the work of Gary Kildall whose CP/M was undisputedly more original and superior in quality to anything else for the "PC".

Using their usual tactics (remember "vaporware"?), MS extinguished Kildall's DR-DOS, and put his company out of business.

Later they paid a $150 million settlement for this move.

What is difficult to understand is why MS cannot make money without copying and interfering with other companies.

What's wrong with their "original" work? Can't they sell that?

Will they use the same tactics against open source projects that write software for UNIX? Maybe that is what concerns people here.

Also difficult to understand why they must force users to "upgrade" and OS that already works? Profits and revenues. Right. Rah rah Redmond.

If this behavior is what they must do in order to derive "profits and revenues" then why would you be confounded by people who would question it?

I'm all for winning in business, profits and revenues, but truthfully I am here because I like using, reading and trying to write software that is better than average.

Microsoft offers nothing in this regard.

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