Tonight, I downloaded darth vader. Tonight, I was lured to the dark side. But I prevailed… with unexpected help.

To to shock of many I presume, I joined forces with my arch-nemesis… not Microsoft, but Emacs. Back in-the-day, Stallman (co)developed emacs, named after “editing macros”, and wisely chose the letter ‘e’ as a prefix because no other program at the time consumed the “e” namespace. So typing e-TAB woud result in your-favorite-editor. simple. intuitive. genius.

Then why on green earth would some programmers at microsoft decide that powershell commands should “intuitively” contain hyphenated words as commands. Hello World! Do you peck type as well? Does it hurt your ring finger to be stroking instead of scrolling? Does productivity hurt? Can you say Tab-Complete before the hyphen? Your interface design requires the rest of us productivity hounds to type “LeftShift-RightIndexFinger-NumberRow-UpperRight” for each-and-every command. You have GOT to be KIDDING me!!! Sure, “Powershell supports TAB-Complete”, you say. But you have to type up to the hyphen first! Unless proven otherwise, I’m convinced that using powershell command-line is somehow easier with the mouse.

I really think that the use of objects as a currency between executing processes is GOLD! In fact, I’ll spend a few spare cycles exploring the command set to understand the run-time benefits of powershell over cmd. But for bills-sake, make it intuitive!

Gates 0. Stallman 1.

Currently, I have two favorite shows, both on the discovery channel: “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” and “Survivorman“. If you’ve seen these shows, you know where I’m going. Shaken and stirred. Too bad “my” idea becomes ownership of Discovery Communications Inc.

I’m in a Seattle hotel after a day of consulting. I’m here twice over the next two weeks visiting Customers and doing my part to make software configuration management (SCM) so much easier with AccuRev. Travelling is fun but I miss Amy. I just finished EOD emails, got room service, and am watching a DVD (R/W) recording of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” - shipwrecked in Cortez Sea. Funny story…. There was a freak snow/ice storm last night that put the city on edge. Many people I planned on visiting were unable to travel to work. Nevertheless, the day went on as planned. At the airport, Hertz upgraded my car…. to a convertible!!! Too bad it was 15degF. haahah.

I miss Amy.