Spiceworld 2019 - From Scripting to Toolmaking: Taking the Next Step With Powershell
I got selected to present at SpiceWorld (hosted by Spiceworks) in September 2019, for a session titled “From Scripting to Toolmaking: Taking the Next Step With Powershell”. I also got to attend a great PowerShell workshop and a few sessions by one of my PowerShell heroes, Jeff Hicks, and to chat with another Microsoft MVP and Veeam Vanguard, Dave Kuwala. It was pretty cool to see my picture next to these two on the speakers page.
This session is meant to help IT Pros upgrade their coding from simple PowerShell scripts to modular tools, which allow for more flexibility while being useful for a wider audience. Topics covered in this session include:
- Planning for tool development
- Concepts of PowerShell Functions & Modules
- Well-Defined Parameters
- Pipeline Input & Error Handling
- Tips to Cheat and Steal (Really, Borrow – and Give Credit)
- What Comes Next - After You Ship
- Other Resources and Advanced Topics to Learn
While scripting makes tasks repeatable, toolmaking ensures that the same tasks are standardized and much easier for other users to complete, and this session covers the basics of creating a tool that functions like native PowerShell cmdlets.
Developing PowerShell code in this fashion ensures consistency by the users of your tool, elevates your skillset, and can be performed with no cost beyond the time to read documentation, test and deploy.
The session itself was recorded, and the video can be found on the Spiceworks channel here. I’ve posted the presentation and code to a Github repository. I’ve also attached the original PowerPoint here for anyone who also wants my rambling presenter notes.
I hope this helps you to learn some PowerShell toolmaking basics, along with providing tips to ease your learning and use of PowerShell as the career pipeline it should be for you.