I would have preferred a bash/powershell solution. Hoping no one is still writing batch files on windows... even if he is still using xp
Currently, "many seconds" is enough time to run an interpreter on the command, connect to a remote machine in Iceland, spin up a new virtual server there, send the command there to be executed, review the execution results for possible exceptions, run a malware scan, fetch the response back, execute the command again on your computer, translate the command and results to Klingon, send them to NSA for archiving, play a quick game of chess with another instance of the shell, and play a congratulatory tune.
Seriously, computers nowadays are fast enough to run a partial compile of your code at every single keystroke while you're writing it. It takes special effort to make a scripting language unusably slow - even an unoptimized interpreter that itself runs on a different interpreter should do just fine.
But I'm guessing you don't really notice the performance difference, you just feel the weight of unused features.
I needed to do something and looked at using powershell, but in the end I couldn't just distribute it and have it work for whomever would be using my project. It needed to be signed or something. On the contrary, the bat script I wrote just worked and would just work for anyone who used the project.
Powershell is not a magical solution that suits everyone's needs. This kind of blanket statement helps no-one.
I had mixed opinions of powershell when I tried my hand at it. The naming convention and documentation system were well designed, piping objects is an interesting concept, and IDE support was great for a terminal (step through debugger, intelligent auto complete). Despite this, there were numerous quirks and ugly spots that diminished the experience. I felt it was a missed opportunity. This was powershell 3, I can't speak for later versions
PS> Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
PS cmdlets in generally are quite consistent: there is a [Verb]-[Noun] naming convention (eg, "Stop-Computer" above) and full tab completion, so if you forget the exact name of a cmdlet you can do Get-[tab] and cycle through every Get-* cmdlet that exists. Even command line switches tab complete, just type a hyphen and then you can tab-cycle through every command line switch that particular cmdlet supports. There's also Remote Powershell, which is like SSH but also built-in. I can sit in a Powershell window and connect to a Windows server anywhere just like SSH on Linux, or even compose a script block, assign it to a variable, then send it over the wire to be executed remotely (or to a group of machines in a foreach loop). It's pretty slick, and all this is built into the shell--no third-party tools required.
I'm not a big fan of MS, but I'm willing to give them kudos on the rare occasion that they build something nice. Powershell has it's quirks like anything, but it's a damn nice piece of engineering and a godsend to anyone who has to administer Windows boxes. Why anyone would continue with the anachronism of (essentially DOS) cmd.exe is beyond me.
Get-ChildItem -Path ~ -Recurse
ls ~ -r
Sadly there are far too many people who only know bash and see straightforward conversions of VBScript into PowerShell and think the language sucks or is too verbose.