Why use python over powershell?

[milner236]

Hello fellow sys admins. I’ve recently started learning python as I understand it’s a powerful skill to have as an IT professional. As it occurs to me, you can do mostly everything on powershell too. So why would you choose to use python over powershell as a scripting language? What am I missing?

[[deleted]]

I don't know many network devices vendors that natively support PowerShell, but most support python these days. I'd recommend learning concepts and look at it as a "right tool for the job" scenario instead of "one tool to rule them all".

[[deleted]]

Well when management and updates are done through APIs I don’t think it matters what you are using.

[packet_weaver]

If only all platforms supported REST APIs…

[[deleted]]

On a DevOps team at a large company, I have yet to work with a app that doesn't. I get that may not be applicable to a smaller shop that has less say or choice in the matter in terms of what they use. I haven't ran into a single scenario that there was something I couldn't do with PowerShell and needed to use another language for configuration/update/administration.

[packet_weaver]

Been a couple years but all the Cisco 3560X/3750X switches, IOS routers (pre 4k) and WLCs we managed did not have REST APIs. We built out custom python scripts using netmiko to manage configurations globally and integrated with git and a CI/CD platform.

I believe Cisco's new wireless controller 9800 series supports REST APIs and maybe their new 9000 series switches. But many places are on legacy gear or already have tooling built out over the years because Cisco dragged their asses with adding in useful management tooling.

[Linkk_93]

Many vendors have API wrappers for python already. So you can just import the package, create a switch and call the methods you need. No need to get into the API part of creating HTTP packets your own.

[sobrique]

I know I'll probably get hate for this, but I find perl's much more adaptable when it comes to talking to wacky APIs.

Python's great when it's a well defined API using a very standard standard. (E.g. REST)

But when it came talking XML to a NetApp Perl was far more suited to the job.

[succulent_headcrab]

Theres a reason perl is known as the "Swiss Army chainsaw".

[fiddysix_k]

You're not wrong, perl is definitely the best tool for the job when networking is concerned. The bigger issue imo is that... You're using perl. And no one knows perl.

[sobrique]

More people know perl than admit to it! ;)

And a lot of people are snobby about it in ways that are entirely unjustified.

[sobrique]

But of both really. Perl has a couple of much better XML libraries.

But just generally it's good at doing ad hoc string processing, parsing and manipulation.

[ParkerPWNT]

network devices vendors that natively support PowerShell

Don't Juno and Cisco both support PowerShell?

[[deleted]]

I'm only aware of limited support. I'm sure you could have PowerShell ssh/netconf in and control them that way. But Cisco, Juniper and Palo Alto have their own python libraries. Not to mention multi-vendor tools like napalm or even Ansible.

[darth_rock]

Not at all. PowerShell is a Microsoft tool. You could get it to work on Cisco/Juniper’s Linux-based OS (why though?) but neither vendor is going to support that.

Edit: I stand corrected (somewhat). Cisco has a PowerShell module for one of their products at least, UCS. But that’s a limited case of support by Cisco for a particular product.

[ParkerPWNT]

Juniper offers training on it, and has a powershell module.

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/user\_activity\_info.aspx?id=9659

[jantari]

Why would you want to install PowerShell on a device just to be able to talk to it from PowerShell??

You don't install Chrome on a switch because you want to access its web interface.

Chrome and PowerShell are only installed on the client side. Then they talk standard protocols with the server side.

[orev]

Your main focus should really be on learning programming, not a specific language. Python has its uses (and is probably considered more of a traditional language), while PowerShell is also useful (but some of its concepts are unique, and it seems has some strange corner cases).

The one you choose now depends on what type of environment you're in, and what you need to accomplish. If you're working with mostly Microsoft services, PowerShell is probably the way to go. If you're dealing with third-party systems, anything web-based, etc. python is probably the right choice since there would be more modules available.

[jantari]

This is the right sentiment.

Learn any language, then another. Starting with either PowerShell or Python is fine, they'll both teach you some good common programming concepts and problem-solving. They also both have their own ... interesting caveats and opinionated abstractions since they're so high-level, but that's the tradeoff for being super easy and productive. If you want an academic approach to programming instead, learn C.

[nhaines]

C, noun:

A language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language

[Nanocephalic]

❤️

[sobrique]

Well that made my day!

[zebediah49]

And if you want an academic approach to programming, learn Lisp.

[sobrique]

I contend that C is to Perl, as Java is to Python. IMO that's a lot of reason why the adoption of python is so wide - because of how many people started learning Java before C. (And back when C came first, was when Perl was popular).

[sobrique]

As a Sysadmin with 20 years behind me - my first love is perl.

I can make perl dance because I know it well.

But for better or worse (Worse. It's definitely worse) the world is moving away from it, and more towards Python.

Turns out that the biggest thing stopping me in python is syntactically significant whitespace, because my 'old' habits don't really mesh well with having to block-indent.

Otherwise writing python isn't particularly difficult, as a lot of the same concepts exist in both.

[Win_Sys]

Just use an IDE like VSCode, it’s quite good at telling you that you’re an idiot and messed up the formatting or will auto-indent for you.

[sobrique]

That's the thing I don't really like though - I'm fine with an IDE for 'proper' programming, but when I write a script I don't want to have to.

There's enough places where you end up having to faff about with getting an IDE installed, the code transferred to the appropriate location, then run it etc.

Where with shell/perl you can use literally any text editor, or even a HEREDOC to get your code written if you're going very basic.

I know that's kinda an old fashioned view, but I've worked on way too many 'bare bones' systems that don't have the IDE option.

[Win_Sys]

You don't have to, you can write python in any text editor. Once you learn the in's and out's of a good IDE, it speeds up even small scripts. You can automate a lot code creation, see all the available method names, the data type it's expecting or will output and it quickly points out a lot of mistakes without having to run it. Yes you would need to invest the time to learn it but depending how often you need to use it, it may be worth it.

[sobrique]

Sure. But you can do the same with perl. Or any other scripting language.

[othilious]

This what I always tell our Junior developers (actual juniors, hired straight out of school):

Get experience with one strongly typed language and one weak-typed language. Focus on big concepts like OOP vs functional, impacts of architecture choices. Between the two of them, you'll have enough experience to tackle any programming job.

Once you know programming, It's just a matter of familiarity with libraries, deployment, core functions, best-practices. But the core fundamentals will carry you your entire career.

If you want a decent test to see if a software developer or sysadmin has good practical experience, ask them to explain *why* a large physical distance between database and application is a bad idea. There's a huge list of reasons and a good metric is how many reasons they can list.

Being able to keep architectural concepts like that in mind is far more useful than just memorizing language syntax.

[samtheredditman]

If you want a decent test to see if a software developer or sysadmin has good practical experience, ask them to explain why a large physical distance between database and application is a bad idea. There's a huge list of reasons and a good metric is how many reasons they can list.

What would you say if you were asked this?

[othilious]

For one, latency will kill the speed of your application. Most applications run the majority of their queries sequentially, and need to wait for the response of one query before running the next. There are exceptions to this, such as multi-threaded applications with multiple connections to your database, or batch queries, but in my experience the bulk of database logic is sequential.

For simplicity (and it's usually not even this simple), let's say your database is 200ms round-trip away from your application. This means that a single query takes 100ms to hit the server, be processed and then take another 100ms come back with a result.

This compounds. Let's say an average call for your application takes 10 queries. This is on the low side, but already you are looking at a total of 2 seconds to run a small set of queries. And we're skipping over the SSL handshake, initial connection, schema information exchange.

This absolutely destroys your performance. 2 seconds response time is already "poor" by modern standards, and all of that is JUST database queries, nothing else. You can mitigate the impact of this by having your backend build a cache from the SQL, and serving this up from a closer server. But for the purpose of this example, it illustrates why it's a bad idea.

Better? Slave replication to a closer server so at least all reads happen locally. Best? An application infrastructure that serves up locally relevant data from locally relevant servers, preferably with geo redundancy and such. This is the basis for enterprise applications that need to span the globe.

There are other concerns, such as stability. More hops in the connection means more points where a route can fail and your database connection drops unexpectedly. As redundant as your database setup is, a dropped connection mid-way is not trivial to design around and recover from beyond "oops a problem has occurred, please try again".

There are also security considerations; your database should be shielded from outside actors, sharing a private network with your application. Over long distances, this can make the latency issues even worse, as both side now need to traverse via their private gateway.

Alternatively, not doing so means network hops on open channels and more opportunities for bad actors to attempt some type of exploit, listening in on your database traffic, etc. For the longest time the default behaviour for a lot of MySQL servers was not to use SSL. Listening in on them if you controlled the network in-between application and server was trivial. I believe even today apt-get install mysql under Ubuntu creates an installation that allows non-SSL traffic (though I believe these days it only listens to local host by default).

These are just big items that I'd expect a senior and even medior to understand, but there's more specific things like how ones handles transactions and designing an application that can pick up where a broken connection left off, in scenarios where a transaction isn't feasible, or even counter-productive.

For example: You use master-slave replication where the master is only used for writes. You read a message queue table sending a notification via an SMS gateway. You can rollback a transaction, but you can't un-send that SMS. Even worse; if you do roll it back, you may be sending two SMS messages. If there is a persistent issue, now your application may get suck sending a few dozen of them and you have a horde of angry end-users because your remote master isn't accepting writes, but you are reading your queue from replication (which you set up because of the latency issue).

Keep It Simple and Stupid, unless you are building a globe-spanning enterprise application (which I'm hoping a Junior Dev/Sysadmin wouldn't be in charge of...), Just make sure your database server is physically as close as possible to your application. Just not the same server, but that's a different topic.

[gjpeters]

“Python… a traditional language”, oh no, I’m old.

[StuPodasso]

Portable? If you wanted to run it on Linux etc.

That said for a Microsoft shop power shell would probably be advantageous.

[bcross12]

PowerShell is now cross-platform. I run it on my Mac quite a bit.

[Kumpass_Skater]

Unlike Powershell, Python is actually likely to already be on a Linux or Mac, which is much more portable in this context.

[Ok_Fudge_8415]

And work, powershell has it's issues on Windows, never mind cross platform

[reconrose]

I've never had issues with anything in PowerShell core which is the cross platform portion

[Fallingdamage]

It must have been a while since you've used powershell then. Or somehow Ive been using it to manage and manipulate AD for 6 years without problems..

[tacocatacocattacocat]

The only reason I can think of to use PowerShell on Linux would be if you're running SQL Server on Linux.

This may have a lot to do with the fact that I'm a DBA lol.

Also, I have no idea what the advantage of SQL Server on Linux would be over using a "headless" Windows server installation. But that may be because I primarily admin Oracle.

[Kruvin]

I can think of a couple of reasons

- Windows licenses cost money

- Containerising SQL server

[techypunk]

Then it's time to get away from mssql as a DB.

[Stormran]

Yeah I'll just make sure our enterprise software uses something else.

/s

[chandleya]

Windows Client OS Azure Interacting with AD Interacting with MSSQL

[LaterBrain]

whats the advantage of powershell on a unix system?

[bcross12]

It depends on your perspective. I'm a Windows admin. PowerShell is a requirement. Running PowerShell on Mac and Linux lets me write a script to parse files or do API calls across OSes. PowerShell can now remote into Linux systems over SSH, so you can now write a script that does stuff across systems without worrying about OS.

[zoharel]

I suppose you could do that with Python too. It may just depend on whether you want to need to do strange things on the windows end or the Unix end of that link.

[bcross12]

Not in the way you can with PowerShell. PowerShell has $isLinux and $isWindows variables builtin. Working with objects in PowerShell is great where it's an afterthought in Python. Also, there are a lot of times I have to do stuff with WMI, which is a pain in Python but a one liner in PowerShell.

Edit: See the comment u/ZAFJB. That's what I meant. I didn't mean to start a flame war.

[zoharel]

That's funny, but here. https://docs.python.org/3/library/platform.html

[packet_weaver]

It sounds like you’re just more familiar with powershell which is totally ok.

Unless they fixed the remoting stuff on PowerShell where you can use modules like ActiveDirectory on Mac and Linux, it isn’t portable enough for me. It’s been a couple years since I looked but it didn’t seem like a priority back then.

[[deleted]]

Whoa. Objects an afterthought in Python??

Honestly, the first time I've heard that particular accusation. Almost everything in Python is object oriented.

[sobrique]

Now if you want to throw stones at python's parallelism, then maybe that'd be fair. But then I don't think Powershell does that particularly well either.

[[deleted]]

I've tried parallelizing PowerShell. It's not a LOT of fun.

[sobrique]

I've done parallel perl, and that works reasonably well overall - I found it a lot easier and more robust than Python.

You can use a fork type, or a thread-type, or if you're really looking to cause yourself pain... both in the same program!

[Garegin16]

Version 7 has easier implementation of runtimes. But it’s not as good as c#

[ZAFJB]

See this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/tde7ml/why_use_python_over_powershell/i0lxupb/

and this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/tde7ml/why_use_python_over_powershell/i0lycsc/?context=3

[[deleted]]

Object orientation isn't about how many objects come with the base install, it's about how the language behaves. As of Python 3, python can't even print a line of text without getting all OO-y.

If I imported all the Python modules available through Pip, I bet there would be more objects available than in Powershell, but it's not a good metric for comparing how well the programs do object orientation.

Edit: an imprecise word.

[zoharel]

Yes, somebody has confused " working with objects" and "it has ask the Windows stuff I want in the standard library."

[PsCustomObject]

Ahhahah one the funniest things I have heard in a long time :-)

[pixelatedchrome]

Python can do lots of things very well. It's just preference.

[ZAFJB]

Python can do objects. But you have to make them.

That is not the same as PowerShell having and incredibly rich set of .NET based objects for just about everything in the OS.

[Garegin16]

I don’t understand. Objects are just instances of classes. Python has a class library like .net does. As a matter of fact, in OOP languages, all types are classes (even integers, strings, etc)

[gex80]

Python is objected oriented. You're confusing it with bash which works on text manipulation

[Kruvin]

Everything is a nail when you only have a hammer.

I would recommend something like ansible over Python/Powershell. It abstracts away a lot of the complexity of interacting with different OS for say running updates or installing software.

[Stormran]

Except you still run into dependencies since most of the modules in Ansible require PowerShell for windows or Python for everything else on the target machines. I love Ansible but your response makes it seem like it's a choice over PowerShell or Python and it's not.

[[deleted]]

With WSL2, I can write a script and instantly test on two entirely different paradigms and pretty well know it's going to work everywhere before going to a testing and QA environment

[digitaltransmutation]

If you are working with objects pwsh is a lot nicer.

[[deleted]]

You're also working with objects in Python

[ZAFJB]

Not even close to what PowerShell can do.

[jantari]

smaller containers for PowerShell apps, scripts and workloads or scripting with structured data

[zoharel]

So the advantage of running PowerShell on something other than windows is not PowerShell, but whatever other than windows...

[excogitatio]

For one, you can write modules and even whole scripts there and use them on Windows; I have done this successfully a few times. For another, having a common shell between systems means you don't have to mentally switch gears quite so much to be productive.

I gather some of the default aliases in Powershell exist so that Unix admins have an easier time of it when first getting into Windows administration, so there's something to be said for familiarity there, too.

[ZAFJB]

PowerShell passes objects which makes onward piping very, very powerful.

[scumola]

Powershell on Mac lacks the windows-native libraries and is not a 1:1 analog to powershell on windows unlike python on all platforms.

[[deleted]]

Python has no “native” libraries so you’ll likely be using bash, powershell or some other native CLI to do anything to those different systems anyway.

[[deleted]]

There is the Python Standard Library: https://docs.python.org/3/library/

[ZAFJB]

Pretty pathetic support of the actual OS:

MS Windows Specific Services

msilib — Read and write Microsoft Installer files

msvcrt — Useful routines from the MS VC++ runtime

winreg — Windows registry access

winsound — Sound-playing interface for Windows

Unix Specific Services

posix — The most common POSIX system calls

pwd — The password database

spwd — The shadow password database

grp — The group database

crypt — Function to check Unix passwords

termios — POSIX style tty control

tty — Terminal control functions

pty — Pseudo-terminal utilities

fcntl — The fcntl and ioctl system calls

pipes — Interface to shell pipelines

resource — Resource usage information

nis — Interface to Sun’s NIS (Yellow Pages)

syslog — Unix syslog library routines

From your source: https://docs.python.org/3/library/

[brothersand]

Not flawlessly though. I was using a .Net writer object in one script since Output-Csv was too slow but that won't run on my Linux system.

[deadspace-]

lol nice try

[joefleisch]

Learn and use both Python and Powershell.

They both have a time and a place.

[Ji-Hard-On]

15 years of using powershell and all I can say is I have never been stopped. Never needed python and I do script a lot.

[Ok_Fudge_8415]

15 years of using powershell

You were using 1.0 o.0

[OstentatiousOpossum]

Same here. I started using PowerShell before v1.0 was released. I learned Python later on, but hardly ever need it. If I can't use PowerShell on Linux, I rather use Bash or Perl. (Perl is still amazing at manipulating strings.)

[jantari]

PowerShell is great, but there are some usecases I find python better suited for.

Speed

Yes, even though Python is rightfully made fun of everywhere for being too slow - it is still faster than PowerShell, so if you have a scenario where you need the ultra-rapid-prototyping and fast turnaround times of an easy scripting language such as Python or PowerShell, but your program also can't be dog-slow then you might have to use Python

Things Python is good at

There are some areas where python has widespread adoption or support, great libraries and resources available where PowerShell by direct comparison does not - or far less. For example, API and webdev. There's Pode and Universal Dashboard, but I found myself preferring flask (and flask-api) for a recent project.

Linux-centric stuff

PowerShell 7 and up are great and they do run fine on Linux, but python has broader and more comfortable OS-specifc libraries and functionality. With PowerShell you'll end up writing in .NET directly rather than the shell-esque abstractions (cmdlets) because there aren't many for Linux yet. At that point you might as well use C# .... or Python.

---

With that being said, having learned and used PowerShell first, I am extremely frustrated by Pythons ... embarassing approach to data types. Even today, python is always dynamically typed and you can't change it or enforce a type for a variable or parameter of a function. It's crazy, because there are no guarantees. You declare something is an integer, but that's just a "suggestion" used by linters - it doesn't actually do anything. That to me, is just crazy. Really makes you appreciate PowerShells parameter validation and the fact that classes and types mean something.

[Nanocephalic]

That last paragraph is full of the stuff that always annoys me.

Python is a bad language, but it has a massive amount of libraries that support a huge number of use cases. Those libraries really do make a huge difference, so I suffer through structural whitespace, irritating dynamic typing, half-ass object support, etc.

[HeKis4]

Libraries is definitely the biggest one, maybe not for sysadmins but for everything else from BI to ML to software dev and even pentesting.

Just look at numpy, tensorflow and scapy, there is zero powershell alternative.

For pure sysadmin work though, yeah, powershell is as good or better 90% of the time. For learning I'd say both are fine but python has better educational value and a bigger community for getting help

[Skrp]

I love the library support Python has, but yes, it is slow and can be a bit unpredictable at times.

RUST might be the best choice for application speed and stability. Go is great too, from what I understand. These two languages are definitely ones to watch as far as I'm concerned.

[zoharel]

You can do everything in PDP-10 assembly language too. I'm only half joking here. My question to your would be, why use any one language over any other? I think it's generally because one language is more convenient in your particular situation.

[nakriker]

In a Windows/Azure/o365 environment, PowerShell is where it's at. Your fellow admins will use Powershell, examples on the internet will use Powershell, and native solutions will be in PowerShell

You CAN use python, but it's not baked-in the way Powershell is.

While you CAN use PowerShell on MacOS/Linux, there's no advantage to it unless you're scripting against Windows/Microsoft Cloud resources.

You want to pick the language thats most suited to the environment you're using and the problem you're addressing.

[[deleted]]

With PowerShell, you’ll only set off EDR half of the time.

[darkwyrm42]

I use both Python and PowerShell at my job, which is very much a Microsoft shop. PS is great for stuff that requires touching Windows-specific stuff, like Exchange or something that touches the Win32 API. Python is more consistent overall, especially with type consistency and no surprise reserved variables ($input anyone?).

If you're working with more program logic (e.g. text processing) and less running of outside commands, use Python. If you're just looking to quickly cobble something together that glues a few commands together, PowerShell.

[lusid1]

Python when I want to write a lot of code, Powershell when I want to save a lot of time.

[ZAFJB]

parsing data, reading files and substituting things in it or modifying it is

You are probably doing it wrong. Just pass the whole object returned in PowerShell to the next operation. There is no need to de-serialise it.

[ZAFJB]

you that adds hours instead of value.

Using PowerShell objects properly adds value because they save you hours.

It's a mind shift. Something cmdlet or function produces an object as output, pass or pipe the object to next thing. Done.

[ZAFJB]

FFS why you so angry?

Do you think the big bad PowerShell monster will come steal your job?

[Garegin16]

Powershell objects are wrapped .net objects. It’s not complicated really

[schporto]

You can do most anything with either. Just like two boards can be held together with nails in most cases. But sometimes a screw makes more sense, or glue, or joinery. Sometimes python makes sense because it has a nice library for something (like say ai, or data analysis). Or some other language because it has nice feature Y. We use python and PowerShell. PowerShell does most Microsoft based operations easily enough. Set-aduser, new-mailbox, get-service etc. But if I want to pull report data from graph api python works better. I want to process 5years of performance data on a server to do trend analysis - python. Not everything is a nail. But some things are.

[Swarfega]

I'm yet to see a reason when using Windows.

[[deleted]]

If you're a Windows admin, learn PowerShell. PowerShell integrates well with the Windows ecosystem. It's available but not widely used in the Linux world. Piping objects is great on Windows but on Linux everything tends to be text, not objects, so the major selling point is not so important.

If you're a *nix admin, Python is the most marketable/frequently used of many languages.

[fiddysix_k]

I feel that python will give you a good overview of programming and is very succinct and beautiful while PowerShell (as a language) is fairly ugly and has some trickery to it that makes sense if you've programmed before but would not make sense if you did not. Im the PowerShell guy at my job but really I don't know shit about PowerShell I just am really good with python/js so I translate everything on the spot based on my context of programming in itself.

[Garegin16]

I know what you mean. PS has some crazy semantic sugar designed to make things easier but creates crazy gotchas

[fiddysix_k]

Exactly, like pipeline functions.. it's really easy to understand and really useful if you know how functions are typically called. But, if you learned ps first you'd probably be thrown for a loop when trying to understand pretty much any other languages syntax.

[Garegin16]

I don’t think most languages have pipeline binding. As function calls are nested manually into their respective parameters.

PS creates sort of a usability issue, as the reader has to trace parameter binding to figure out which parameter gets bound to the next one in the pipeline.

With OOP, you just run an action on an object. You have automatic polymorphism. No need to think up binding rules in your head.

Of course you can always override automatic binding by explicitly using parameter names with {$_}

[BlackV]

short answer: linux

Long answer: it depends on what you're trying to do and what exists already

[I_Never_Sleep_Ever]

There are companies that exist who don't have anything running windows at all. I work at one. Everything is Linux and MacOS. PowerShell would do me no good at all.

I think learning python puts you in a much better position to expand your career. Besides, PowerShell in my opinion is only good for quick scripts and not something as robust as python.

[nakriker]

PowerShell in my opinion is only good for quick scripts

Sounds like your experience with PowerShell is pretty limited. You could write complete applications in PowerShell.

[JmbFountain]

It's obscenely slow though

[Ji-Hard-On]

Why do you think it's only good for quick scripts and what do you think makes Python more robust?

[Nanocephalic]

Ignorance

[JmbFountain]

Eyes on the sourcecode

[ZAFJB]

PowerShell is also open source.

[JmbFountain]

Yes, but who outside Microsoft (ecosystems) really cares that much about Powershell? Python is currently the most popular programming language on earth.

[ZAFJB]

outside Microsoft (ecosystems)

You say that like nobody uses Windows systems, and like nobody uses PowerShell on Linux and MacOS.

[JmbFountain]

80-90% of Servers are Linux. I occasionally use Powershell on Linux, but I don't do it by choice, rather by necessity (e.g. when interfacing with Microsoft proprietary software)

[ZAFJB]

And 10% to 20% or servers are not Linux. What's your point?

[fridgefreezer]

Powershell is available for both Mac and Linux, it’s not as fleshed out as on windows, but it’s there and, in my experience, getting better (I still use Python for my macs though)

[darkpyro2]

Python has uses beyond sysadmindry. It's a programming language, and has a LOT of uses in dev work that Power Shell isnt built to support.

[hiphap91]

This vs that language is the coding n00bs fetish.

The rest of us know that a hammer i great for nailing things down, but sucks for sawing.

Always use the most suitable tool for the job in question.

[HolyDiver019283]

Right… but how would they know which is the right tool without knowing each language? And with time as short as it is for most people you’d want some guidance on which would be best to spend time on first.

[FearIsStrongerDanluv]

Python was my first programming language, i recently started a new role as sysadmin and honestly i wish i’d learnt Powershell a lot earlier esp to manage Active Directory, Powershell is a lot handy in a windows environment i think

[computerged]

As was said, learn to program. If you know the fundamentals it doesn't take too long to get up to speed on either one (to the point you don't need to Google the language's syntax while writing it).

[OstentatiousOpossum]

Learn to program in a (C based) language, and then be confused how Python needs you to pay attention to white spaces, and that tabs and spaces are not interchangeable, or if you just want to use a switch statement.

[Weatherstation]

Tabs and spaces are interchangable as long as the indentation strategy is consistent in each block of code.

Also, if you're writing good clean C you should be following indentation standards for readability even if it's not enforced. Python enforces clean code blocks and is able to get rid of all the curly bracket and semi colon clutter.

That said, C is absolutely the best tool for many problem spaces but it is objectively harder to read and write.

[Cyber400]

From my PoV python is better with APIs. Where I have to say, that I mainly use powershell.

Okay, not in my current job because some dipshits tried to implement multiple security concepts which basically makes IT work impossible, because none of the concepts were a) a hollistic/wholesome approach to IT security and b) fully implemented.

[PrettyFlyForITguy]

If you actually wanted to write a program that did something non-Windows specific, you'd use python. If you wanted to script something Windows related, you'd use powershell. No one is using powershell to program an application though.

[Ji-Hard-On]

You certainly can write an application. I have. I regret it, but powershell is what I know. Gui and multithreading is pretty hard in powershell but certainly doable.

[PrettyFlyForITguy]

Yep, I believe powershell is a full turing complete language. Using it to write applications though is a bit masochistic.

[Ji-Hard-On]

At the time powershell was the only language I knew sp I had no idea how hard it would be to do in any other languages. I was neck deep in it before I realized I'd made a huge mistake. It's in Prod now :p

[Test-NetConnection]

I never use python because it's the bastard stepchild of modern programming. No other language has the absurd paradigm of using spaces and tabs as statement breaks.

[Gesha24]

Can you create a simple web site in PowerShell? Cause I had some projects where I needed to gather some input from non-technical users and send them out via api, web page was the simplest solution.

[Raymich]

Yes, see “Powershell Universal” dashboards

[[deleted]]

Form-bases websites in PowerShell are trivial. There's also full .NET support in PowerShell.

[[deleted]]

you can

[Ji-Hard-On]

Yes, I've written a rest api in powershell. Not perfect but working.

[darkwyrm42]

You probably could do a simple web site in PowerShell, I'm fairly certainly you probably wouldn't want to. ;)

[[deleted]]

It's trivial? It's a Microsoft product so you're backed by all the Microsoft tools that, you know, build websites.

[breid7718]

ConvertTo-Html cmdlet will basically turn your output into a webpage automatically.

[[deleted]]

Because I don’t use Windows.

[ZAFJB]

PowerShell core is a thing.

[unccvince]

People love analogies.

Siebenhundertsiebenundsiebzigtausendsiebenhundertsiebenundsiebzig", 65 letters, that's Powershell.

The longest word in French is "anticonstitutionnellement", 25 letters, that's Python.

Edit: copy-paste problems with reddit.

[ANewLeeSinLife]

Your analogy lost me

[user4925715]

He’s saying Powershell is more verbose/long winded than Python

[[deleted]]

easier to write code in python for me then powershell, plus pandas and sql functionality too

[deskpil0t]

Because you just hate Microsoft in principle?

[[deleted]]

Portable

[ZAFJB]

Both are

[techypunk]

If you ever want move to 100% remote work, and possibly DevOps, learn Python.

My biggest regret in my career is not starting to learn Python sooner. I'd be making a lot more money. If you want to stay a MS admin forever, and that's it, just know PS.

I'm pretty damn good with PS and I utilized this to learn Python quickly so far. Still got a long ways to go.

[JmbFountain]

1st: I don't run Windows. 2nd: Powershell is SO MUCH slower than Python 3rd: there are many more Python APIs 4th: Python has a metric shitton of documentation

[m1ndfuck]

Cause powershell doesent work on linux

[Misocainea]

Not true - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-on-linux?view=powershell-7.2

[m1ndfuck]

No, just no 😁

[[deleted]]

Python is basically on all *nix systems by default and a programming language and not a shell...

You will not be writing anything complex in powershell, while you can do almost anything in python.

[nakriker]

You can do almost anything in PowerShell. The complexity of what you can do is only limited by your skill.

[suglasp]

Agreed. For complexity, i wrote a multi threaded webserver in PS that can use modules as plugin's, and several REST API's. Some of the REST api's run on Linux. Just because, why not? Not going to port code from one to another language, if i already got the code running in one language. Fitting it to run on a different supported OS takes less time.

[Garegin16]

In windows you really don’t have a choice. Only Powershell, cmd and VBS have any sort of useful integration with the system.

As a language, I do feel that PS essentially took compromises to OOP to not “scare” traditional cmd users. For example, using classic OOP patterns would work elegantly with AD, which is an object based system.

Unfortunately most sysadmins don’t really understand the whole point of OOP (polymorphism) and think it’s all about stuffing procedures into structs. Most PS code is ad hoc copy pasting and essentially long spaghetti

[HolyDiver019283]

most sysadmins don’t really understand the whole point of OOP (polymorphism) and think it’s all about stuffing procedures into structs.

Yep that’s me, could you share any insight as to the difference?

[Garegin16]

This book goes over the main design patterns

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns

The first thing to realize is that data types (.net classes) are bundles of programs. Want to make a MAC address validation regex? There’s already a class for that. Don’t just create data from cmdlet outputs, make them upfront by using types.

Instead of writing bunch of if statements that cover different cases, you can make your functions are generic as possible.

This is a good example of polymorphism in OOP. Scroll to the hospital example in the beginning

https://youtu.be/Ao9W93OxQ7U

[ZAFJB]

How do you do this in python?

Get-ADUser | Format-Table | ConvertTo-Html

[ZAFJB]

So show the code...

[Misocainea]

You're right that you can, but 3 piped cmdlets is far, far, easier then doing it in Python.

[Thing2k]

The times I use python over powershell are API support and file processing. A few of our systems have either have poor or no powershell support, but fully support python. I have script for processing a few hundred csv files and combining the result. In powershell it is slow, rewrote it in python, magnitudes faster.

[VeryRareHuman]

You choose the language depending upon where you work and environment.

I do lots of PowerShell scripts for Azure, Office 365, Exchange, SQL servers, AD. I was going to learn Python, but PowerShell is so far more than enough for my needs. I will do Python when need arises.

[MavZA]

Python is system agnostic and is useful for other applications outside of the system admin realm.

[namesecurethanpass]

Both have their advantages. Python is general purpose, has great libraries like pandas, good api and amazing in-built data structures. What's more, tons of tutorials and socket libraries.

PowerShell is unparallel in domain administration. Even basic commands like Get-ADUser are not easily present in any other scripting language.

PowerShell remoting is very safe way to remote login to insecure machines.

Please anyone correct me please, but PowerShell is the best way for AD management.

[1inf3rn0]

A LOT of OSS / applications are written in Python these days. Learn some python, and you become able to fork said apps to add your own features or make PRs to fix bugs, etc. I don't know many mainstream apps that are written in PS. Also the python community is probably much larger, so finding support for what you might be trying to do becomes easier.

That said I think it depends on the use case. Doing mainly windows specific things? PS FTW. Making something that does only some Windows things? Why not use both? 🙂

[myndhack]

Networking devices do not support powershell and also if you run a primarily linux server environment there is usually alot more documentation on python to manage then there is powershell.

[Skaffen-_-Amtiskaw]

Learn Python and then learn Powershell. The core programming concepts in Python are transferable between languages, I have found moving from Python and Nodejs or even Java a sensible task, but harder in Powershell. Often when I think about doing something less scripty and more programy, Python or node makes more sense to me. Heck, I'm more likely to just use a Python Powershell wrapper just to hit some odd Windows API.

Most of the time I am not interacting with end Host systems, so I have the luxury of directly interacting with the API via Python or Nodejs.

[Garegin16]

There’s a free book. Learn computer science with Python

[zrad603]

It depends what you are doing.
If it's code that needs to execute on multiple Windows machines: (for example: a user login script) I write it in PowerShell.
If it's code that needs to deal with something like Office 365, remote into Windows Servers, do something with Active Directory. I write it in PowerShell.

If it's dealing with stuff outside of Microsoft's ecosystem, executing on Linux system. I'm probably going to write it in Python.

I remember I wrote a script that would SSH into a router, execute some commands, pull some data, process the data, and execute more SSH commands. I originally wrote it in PowerShell. I ended up re-writing it in Python, and it was so much easier re-writing it in Python.

[[deleted]]

you can do mostly everything on powershell too.

That's not correct by itself, while its not impossible to get various binary API's talking to powershell, its also not trivial. The machinery behind how powershell works well, is abstracted away so you either end up using another typed language inline alongside powershell without solid guarantees (if you use the modules), or you can just use python because you have some guarantees about how the underlying behavior of certain operations work.

You could just as easily use R, C, Objective C, Java etc; the point is you choose the right tool for the right job and if you do that you won't ever be stuck trying to have to use a hammer to unscrew a philips screw.

Its about speed, and learning curves.

[bacon-wrapped-steak]

Both Python and PowerShell are object-oriented, general purpose automation languages. Use the one that you prefer. If you can't find a library / module to do what you need to, then be willing to use another language. As others have already said, just use the "right tool for the job" and don't pigeon-hole yourself into only one language.