
Chocolatey - Windows Package Manager - Kenan
http://chocolatey.org/
======
dekz

        DownloadString("http://bit.ly/psChocInstall"))  
    

I don't think that is the best idea ever had...

~~~
latch
I understand your specific security concerns, but the whole line is offensive.
Certainly not the fault of the Chocolatey authors, but this is what I'd call a
massively over-engineered shell:

    
    
      iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString("http://bit.ly/psChocInstall"))

~~~
kprobst
That being different from using wget or curl in bash or easy_install how
again?

~~~
latch

      wget http://bit.ly/psChocInstall
    

vs

    
    
      ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString("http://bit.ly/psChocInstall"))

~~~
doty
If you happen to have wget, sure. Windows doesn't, by default. It is far more
likely that the machine will have powershell, and if it does, it has the .net
frameworks.

But, with wget, the line is

    
    
      iex (wget -qO- http://bit.ly/psChocInstall) 
    

which isn't too bad.

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hyperrail
This looks like a close competitor to CoApp (<http://coapp.org/>) - both are
FOSS package managers for Windows, although it appears Chocolatey places less
emphasis on libraries and other developer-focused packages. That is, CoApp is
emphasizing shipping both source and binary packages, and provides more help
to package maintainers still trying to make their programs build on Windows.

Chocolatey will probably get more users early on though, because of its
association with the ever-popular NuGet (watch for the Scott Hanselman blog
post...).

~~~
ferventcoder
That and creating packages with chocolatey is stupid simple compared to what
I've seen with CoApp. But CoApp also has source and WinSxS.

You can see how easy it is to create a package here:
<https://github.com/chocolatey/chocolatey/wiki/CreatePackages>

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antihero
Would recommend changing the "cinst" command to something more memorable like
"choc".

~~~
ferventcoder
And the uninstall command? :D

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pizza
What benefits (other than what looks like a scripting language) does
PowerShell give over regular command prompt?

~~~
iamelgringo
Differences between PowerShell and other *nix shell variants are that PShell
allows you to pipe full COM or .NET objects between processes or commends,
rather than just piping the text files between different commands.

PowerShell vs cmd.exe PowerShell is actually a complete shell scripting
language, that gives you full access to all of the .NET libraries and methods.
It also has a rather nice IDE that ships with Windows as is. Also, you can use
PShell of Exchange and other server automation, you can do remote scripting,
and it has some pretty decent security controls baked into the system.

~~~
lloeki
> _PShell allows you to pipe full COM or .NET objects between processes or
> commends, rather than just piping the text files between different
> commands._

Which is IMHO the best part about unix shell and the worst about PowerShell:
being pure text, unix shell allows for very loose definition of the interface
between the program and outside, allowing to connect stuff in creative ways
with minimal plumbing; whereas PowerShell makes this interface definition
quite stringent by comparison, hence needing theoretically less plumbing (at
least for simple tasks) but requiring far more design in the interface,
restricting connectivity which in turns generates more mediation and plumbing
to connect foreign elements.

In short unix shell may seem archaic but its loose binding makes it very
powerful and quick to solve problems, while PowerShell is, well, a chore.

~~~
comex
I haven't used PowerShell (since I don't use Windows), but when using the Unix
shell interactively every so often I find myself in a situation where the data
is too complex for a shell command to be able to process it, or else running
into some corner case of missing functionality. Usually I end up piping into
python -c, but that ends up pretty gross... if PowerShell isn't the answer,
what is?

I wonder how far you could get by sort of plopping PowerShell onto the Unix
shell and supporting both structured and text data.

(Incidentally, one such corner case is summing a list of numbers - this sounds
like it should be a short command, but actually requires a complicated command
line using awk.)

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Jarred
I would recommend mentioning that one needs to run 'set-executionpolicy
unrestricted' in the code box.

~~~
Raphael
Thank you.

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felipeota
I had high hopes when I saw the title. I was expecting something for getting
MinGW precompiled libraries like openssl, curl or boost; which I find needing
more than often.

~~~
xpaulbettsx
If you need a sane MinGW environment, the MSys Git dev environment is by-far
the easiest way to do so, it will download and set it up all in one shot.

~~~
felipeota
I am using the vanillia one and it is very good. The only problem I have with
it is that I have to compile everything for it. Sometimes doing so is not so
straight-forward and can take a lot of time, boost being one example.

