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Powershell's fatal flaw is size. The Debian dash POSIX shell can compile under 100k on i386. This is a space where Powershell can never be.

by chasil 3y ago

dekhn 3y ago
powershell is a 440k executable on my machine. functionally, it's much more capable than dash. I don't think powershell is even remotely interested in competing in whatever space you are in.
- jborean93 3y ago
  PowerShell also needs all the other dll's located next to the executable so it's way more than 440k. Granted I agree that this isn't a space they really care about and the problem is more due to the dependency on .NET itself.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Well, I assumed the 100K dash shell also was dynamically linked (presumably to libc and the linker loader). But yes, you're right, I wasn't including all the DLLs and all the various modules/scripts you can invoke. from my inspection, it looks like DLLs that are probably already loaded just by booting a system.
    - jborean93 3y ago
      It's more for pwsh (7+) as that bundles it's own copy of the .NET runtime. The powershell.exe (5.1) is the version included in Windows and uses a shared copy of the .NET Framework included in the GAC. When looking at the size of modern PowerShell (7+) you do need to take into consideration the size of the .NET runtime which is quite sizeable. Personally it's not a problem for me and while I don't agree it's a fatal flaw it's certainly a downside compared to other shells.
davidmurdoch 3y ago
Do you actually care about this?
- thefaux 3y ago
  Not OP, but I do. In principle it shouldn't really matter what the size of the binary is, but a large binary relative to peers in the program's category usually reflects complexity and bloat. Powershell feels sluggish and unresponsive to me relative to fish, bash or zsh (the three shells I've used most). I was so put off by the feel of powershell five or so years ago that I haven't used it since then. For that reason though, I will concede it's possible it's better now but I'd be pretty surprised given Microsoft's track record.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    It’s still a lousy interactive shell, although it’s a fine sysadmin oriented scripting language and better than bash/zsh/fish for such purposes. You’d only ever use it to work with Microsoft stuff though, and older Microsoft stuff at that.
- chasil 3y ago
  I care about dash because when I write for it, I write for them all. The speed and economy of size are a side effect.
  - davidmurdoch 3y ago
    I don't understand. How does the size of an application change how you write code?
robomartin 3y ago
That may have been relevant in the era of the IBM PC with 1MB of memory and 10MB hard drives. Today and going forward? Almost irrelevant. Even embedded systems have massive resources these days. This isn't to say I am not critical of some aspects of PowerShell. I am simply saying that being critical about compiled software size is something that left the building a long time ago as a valid concern. I am very much into efficiency and performance in software. As much as I hate it, these are not metrics that make the difference between winning and losing for most software applications today.
whalesalad 3y ago
Windows is already bloated to high hell. Being concerned about powershell's size feels like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
- jdiff 3y ago
  PowerShell exists on other platforms
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    why in god's heavenly image would you use powershell anywhere but windows
    - unclad5968 3y ago
      I use it on other platforms so I can use the same scripts no matter where I'm developing. Also github ci
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      For the same reason one would use Python, Ruby, Perl on Windows, outside UNIX. Portable scripts.
bayesianbot 3y ago
And slowness, which might be related to the size. I was using PowerShell for months and loved it, until one day I needed to start fish shell and it felt amazing, the experience was just so lag-free compared to PowerShell. I didn't notice it while using PowerShell but after that I could never change back. Also shell startup speed felt quite meaningless before but after getting used to few second startup delay with PowerShell, it was so nice to just open terminal and start typing instead.
pjmlp 3y ago
I doubt anyone is using PowerShell on Arduinos.
skissane 3y ago
> Powershell's fatal flaw is size. I wonder how big PowerShell would be if it was reimplemented in WinRT instead of .NET

Powershell's fatal flaw is size. The Debian dash POSIX shell can compile under 100k on i386. This is a space where Powershell can never be.

by chasil 3y ago

Powershell's fatal flaw is size. The Debian dash POSIX shell can compile under 100k on i386. This is a space where Powershell can never be.

dekhn 3y ago

powershell is a 440k executable on my machine. functionally, it's much more capable than dash. I don't think powershell is even remotely interested in competing in whatever space you are in.

jborean93 3y ago
PowerShell also needs all the other dll's located next to the executable so it's way more than 440k. Granted I agree that this isn't a space they really care about and the problem is more due to the dependency on .NET itself.
- dekhn 3y ago
  Well, I assumed the 100K dash shell also was dynamically linked (presumably to libc and the linker loader). But yes, you're right, I wasn't including all the DLLs and all the various modules/scripts you can invoke. from my inspection, it looks like DLLs that are probably already loaded just by booting a system.
  - jborean93 3y ago
    It's more for pwsh (7+) as that bundles it's own copy of the .NET runtime. The powershell.exe (5.1) is the version included in Windows and uses a shared copy of the .NET Framework included in the GAC. When looking at the size of modern PowerShell (7+) you do need to take into consideration the size of the .NET runtime which is quite sizeable. Personally it's not a problem for me and while I don't agree it's a fatal flaw it's certainly a downside compared to other shells.

davidmurdoch 3y ago

Do you actually care about this?

thefaux 3y ago
Not OP, but I do. In principle it shouldn't really matter what the size of the binary is, but a large binary relative to peers in the program's category usually reflects complexity and bloat. Powershell feels sluggish and unresponsive to me relative to fish, bash or zsh (the three shells I've used most). I was so put off by the feel of powershell five or so years ago that I haven't used it since then. For that reason though, I will concede it's possible it's better now but I'd be pretty surprised given Microsoft's track record.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  It’s still a lousy interactive shell, although it’s a fine sysadmin oriented scripting language and better than bash/zsh/fish for such purposes. You’d only ever use it to work with Microsoft stuff though, and older Microsoft stuff at that.
chasil 3y ago
I care about dash because when I write for it, I write for them all. The speed and economy of size are a side effect.
- davidmurdoch 3y ago
  I don't understand. How does the size of an application change how you write code?

robomartin 3y ago

That may have been relevant in the era of the IBM PC with 1MB of memory and 10MB hard drives. Today and going forward? Almost irrelevant. Even embedded systems have massive resources these days. This isn't to say I am not critical of some aspects of PowerShell. I am simply saying that being critical about compiled software size is something that left the building a long time ago as a valid concern. I am very much into efficiency and performance in software. As much as I hate it, these are not metrics that make the difference between winning and losing for most software applications today.

whalesalad 3y ago

Windows is already bloated to high hell. Being concerned about powershell's size feels like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

jdiff 3y ago
PowerShell exists on other platforms
- whalesalad 3y ago
  why in god's heavenly image would you use powershell anywhere but windows
  - unclad5968 3y ago
    I use it on other platforms so I can use the same scripts no matter where I'm developing. Also github ci
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    For the same reason one would use Python, Ruby, Perl on Windows, outside UNIX. Portable scripts.

bayesianbot 3y ago

And slowness, which might be related to the size. I was using PowerShell for months and loved it, until one day I needed to start fish shell and it felt amazing, the experience was just so lag-free compared to PowerShell. I didn't notice it while using PowerShell but after that I could never change back. Also shell startup speed felt quite meaningless before but after getting used to few second startup delay with PowerShell, it was so nice to just open terminal and start typing instead.

pjmlp 3y ago

I doubt anyone is using PowerShell on Arduinos.

skissane 3y ago

> Powershell's fatal flaw is size. I wonder how big PowerShell would be if it was reimplemented in WinRT instead of .NET