While this book was designed to be used by Windows System Administrators, any developer who has ever needed to write a batch (.bat) file will welcome with open arms the flexibility and power provided by Windows PowerShell.

This book is up to date covering all the way through PowerShell version 5. There are 24 chapters that cover a wide array of topics. In addition, any developer who has worked with the .NET framework will enjoy PowerShell, which is a command-line interface built on the .NET Framework.

The beauty of PowerShell is that it also provides you with PowerShell ISE, which is an integrated scripting environment that "helps you compose, debug, manage and run Windows PowerShell script files." This book gives any interested party a good overview of how PowerShell is put together and how it works. PowerShell is different than other scripting languages in that while it uses pipes, it does not pass text but rather passes objects from one pipe to another. The author stresses over and over the many avenues where help is available.

As I mentioned, I am not an administrator and as such there were certain chapters in the book that had no relevance to me. However, the author does a wonderful job of explaining each topic in a clear manner. For instance, there is a chapter on calling SQL Server from inside of PowerShell. That is a handy and powerful ability to have.

The exercises at the end of each chapter serve as a good review and as stimulation to dig deeper into the product. This is a very well written book. The author is a very good writer and educator. I hope he follows through with his promise to write a book on PowerShell scripting as I would very much look forward to reading it.