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hey everyone

i started reading and completed my first powershell book

Manning Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches 3rd Edition

now i want to continue with my next book so i saw that there is a book called

learn powershell toolmaking in a month of lunches

and another one called

learn powershell scirpting in a month of lunches

so im not sure about the difference between those two ? are they different editions ? which one do you guys recommend ?

7 Spice ups
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So Don has written several great books. And they each focus on some different things. Your book is a great introduction and is a natural outgrowth of some fantastic courses he wrote in the early days. I met Don and taught these courses, and his book covers the same material - the basics of PowerShell.

The Tool Making book takes you on what he calls the tool makers journey. You start from being able to write a simple 1-2 line (or more) scripts that do just one thing. For example, add JerryG to the group RKDnsAdmins. Then you parameterise it to enable the script to be run with parameters to add any user to any group. Then you turn that script into a function. You create a Controller script to run that function (and possibly others) based on input data. Add in some error handling too Finally, you package it all up in a module, complete with upgradeable help, documentation, etc for others to use.

With the scripting book, he looks at writing production scripts. And the things you need to do to turn a nice hand-made module that works for you in your environment into a bullet-proof and utterly solid module anyone can use safely.

To me the second of these two books, which focuses on the skills you need to write good scripts, is preferable. Both are worth reading and studying. You should know the skills in both books.

And to become a PowerShell Jedi, here’s a set of skills you need to master: Under The Stairs: Moving from PowerShell Journeyman to PowerShell Master

1 Spice up
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well thank you for the explanation … i think ill go ahead with the toolmaking , finish it then go for the scripting book also

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The most important part of learning powershell, is to use it in a way that makes sense to you.

Find some projects (AD structure, user rights, Exchange, automate data streams into documents, folders, Windows services, remote program installation, registry settings etc.). Ask the users what would make sense to have automated and try to script it.

Use books (you are already going the right direction there, I recommend: PowerShell for Sysadmins | No Starch Press and Windows PowerShell in Action, Third Edition ), Microsoft PowerShell Documentation - PowerShell | Microsoft Learn GitHub, StackOverFlow, SpiceWorks, the internet and every resource available to you.

Happy scripting :slight_smile:

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