The Lounge - CodeProject

raddevus11-Jul-24 8:01

11-Jul-24 8:01

Adam Gordon Bell is a great podcaster who investigates the stories behind the code.
I've enjoyed a great many of his podcasts.
This one, where he interviews Jeffrey Snover (creator of PowerShell) is fantastic.

Navigating Corporate Giants Jeffrey Snover and the Making of PowerShell - CoRecursive Podcast[^]

Snover reveals interesting details that, I believe, will open your eyes to why Microsoft has backed certain technologies then left them for dead. Really great insider stuff you're not going to hear anywhere else.

The podcast is also available via Apple Podcasts.

Listent to it while you're working & I'm guessing you'll stop working to focus on it more. Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Kent Sharkey11-Jul-24 8:17

Kent Sharkey

11-Jul-24 8:17

Or at the very least, read the transcript. Jeffrey Snover is amazing (even if I hate PowerShell)

TTFN - Kent

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus11-Jul-24 9:11

raddevus

11-Jul-24 9:11

Kent Sharkey wrote:
(even if I hate PowerShell

I haven't been a big fan either, but...

1. I can run powershell scripts on my Linux box (Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS). Kind of amazing
2. When you listen to the podcast (and I know you will) then you will see that for a Windows Admin it is the only solution (so you have to love it if you're over there). You'll discover why that is in the podcast & your head will probably explode (if you didn't already know why)
3. There are some things you can do with PowerShell which are fun, here's one now:

Insert gratuitous personal self-promotion here
Generate a SHA256 for any input text:

PowerShell

param (
  [string]$target = $(Read-Host)
)
$stringAsStream = [System.IO.MemoryStream]::new()
$writer = [System.IO.StreamWriter]::new($stringAsStream)
$writer.write($target)
$writer.Flush()
$stringAsStream.Position = 0
$outHash = Get-FileHash -InputStream $stringAsStream | Select-Object Hash
$outHash.hash.ToLower()

Run it like this:

$ pwsh <filename.ps1> "this is my string I want to hash"

Oh, wait that is from my most recent article[^]. Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Peter_in_278011-Jul-24 17:14

Peter_in_2780

11-Jul-24 17:14

Bash

echo "this is my string I want to hash" | sha256sum

Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Derek Hunter11-Jul-24 21:57

Derek Hunter

11-Jul-24 21:57

When I sit in front of a bash shell prompt I feel the entire computer spread out in front of me.

When I sit in front of a Powershell prompt I feel like I'm peeking through a tiny hole into a big confusing mess.

The first Microsoft PC I used had 640K of memory and twin floppy disks. It felt like an amusing toy next to the Sun Microsystems workstation on my desk. Forty years later it still f*****g does!

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus12-Jul-24 2:42

raddevus

12-Jul-24 2:42

Derek Hunter wrote:
When I sit in front of a bash shell prompt I feel the entire computer spread out in front of me.
When I sit in front of a Powershell prompt I feel like I'm peeking through a tiny hole into a big confusing mess.

That is a very good way to express the feeling of sys admin in windows versus Linux.

And, that is exactly what Jeffrey Snover literally fought the internal people at MS about.

The other people were like, "no look you can move your mouse and do all that stuff".
Snover was like, "Ok, so you have 100 machines that you need to set a value on as a sys admin and youre going to have the sys admin login to each box and move the mouse to set the value?!!!"

It's a great interview.

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus12-Jul-24 2:20

raddevus

12-Jul-24 2:20

That's a really interesting shell command I had never seen.

Unfortuantely, it is actually not quite generating the correct sha256 hash.

I had to prove it to myself first.

I tried:

$ echo "aardvark" | sha256sum

You get the value: aabbc5c9b7ec8ef2facd0dbee5b3f7f8836b53544583c21894d25ca4cf98a188

That's incorrect.

The correct value is:
cf9c1cb89584bf8c4176a37c2c954a8dc56077d3ba65ee44011e62ab7c63ce2d

Independent Hash Creator: VirusTotal
As a way to prove this I created a file (aardvark.txt) with the word aardvark but no line terminator or file terminator in it and uploaded it to VirusTotal (runs a sha256 on every file it receives) and you can see that it confirms the same output that I get from my PowerShell script at this link[^].

If you look at the top of that page you'll see the value of the word aardvark which is:
cf9c1cb89584bf8c4176a37c2c954a8dc56077d3ba65ee44011e62ab7c63ce2d

The problem with the script you've provided is that it seems to include a \n with the txt that is hashed.

Here's a snapshot of me trying your values[^] and then inputting the value of my aardvark.txt file (which includes no file terminator or line terminator to your script.

I hope you find this as interesting as I do. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

modified 12-Jul-24 8:29am.

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Peter_in_278012-Jul-24 2:32

Peter_in_2780

12-Jul-24 2:32

We both forgot to put echo -n to suppress the trailing newline.

Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus12-Jul-24 2:34

raddevus

12-Jul-24 2:34

Thanks, I could not figure out how to get the correct output using that new shell command. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

-n For The Win!!!

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Peter Adam12-Jul-24 2:26

Peter Adam

12-Jul-24 2:26

Is sha256sum a Bash internal command or something you have to install?

If the latter, you can do it in Windows without piping and installing anything, and more: Windows: MD5/SHA256 CheckSum - Built-In Utility - ShellHacks

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus12-Jul-24 2:36

raddevus

12-Jul-24 2:36

It is a (built-in) bash shell command (at least here on Ubuntu 22.04.4).
I just tried the certutil on my windows machine and had it generate a SHA256 of my aardvark.txt file and it worked great.

certutil -hashfile aardvark.txt SHA256
SHA256 hash of aardvark.txt:
cf9c1cb89584bf8c4176a37c2c954a8dc56077d3ba65ee44011e62ab7c63ce2d

Thanks for the insight into that one. Really great. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Peter_in_278012-Jul-24 2:36

Peter_in_2780

12-Jul-24 2:36

It's not a bash builtin, but it is provided by a standard (default install) package.

Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus12-Jul-24 2:43

raddevus

12-Jul-24 2:43

Thanks for the clarity on that. I can never tell my built-ins from my packages in the ground. Laugh | :laugh:

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Peter_in_278012-Jul-24 19:07

Peter_in_2780

12-Jul-24 19:07

A couple of quick tricks:

help -d will list all builtins with a (very) brief synopsis
which command will show the executable path for non-builtins

Note that there are some that have a foot in both camps, for example printf
(That one's a bitch - the builtin behaves subtly differently from the external program.)

Just command will run the builtin, specify a path to force the external one, like /usr/bin/command .

...and of course <facepalm>

type -a command

Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

kmoorevs11-Jul-24 9:15

kmoorevs

11-Jul-24 9:15

raddevus wrote:
Listent to it while you're working & I'm guessing you'll stop working to focus on it more

Yep! You were correct! That was an interesting interview. I've bookmarked for future use. Thanks for sharing! Smile | :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

raddevus11-Jul-24 9:17

raddevus

11-Jul-24 9:17

Glad to hear others enjoyed it as much as I did. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

dandy7212-Jul-24 3:45

dandy72

12-Jul-24 3:45

The raw RSS feed, as God intended podcasts to be used:

CoRecursive: Coding Stories

raddevus wrote:
The podcast is also available via Apple Podcasts.

Don't feed the beast.

Re: Stories Behind the Tech:PowerShell

Rick York12-Jul-24 5:10

Rick York

12-Jul-24 5:10

That was interesting to read. Adam's interjections got a bit annoying but that's OK.

I found one line in particular to be hilarious :

Quote:
I’ve never seen anybody use a GUI in a clever way. Ever. There’s no cleverness to it.

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

I've had too much Internet

honey the codewitch11-Jul-24 2:56

honey the codewitch

11-Jul-24 2:56

Hacking furries.

"But it remains to be seen whether these hackers — who last year managed to breach NATO systems as well as a major U.S. nuclear lab that they demanded begin research on “creating IRL catgirls” — will truly disappear into the shadows. Like an empowering fursona, hacking can be an identity that’s hard to give up. Before he congratulates himself any more, Howell might want to at least change his passwords."

I'm not posting a link to the article because it's political.

But this is a thing that happened.

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

Re: I've had too much Internet

MarkTJohnson11-Jul-24 2:59

MarkTJohnson

11-Jul-24 2:59

Well, are they?

honey the codewitch wrote:
“creating IRL catgirls”

Inquiring minds want to know!

I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.

Re: I've had too much Internet

HobbyProggy11-Jul-24 3:06

HobbyProggy

11-Jul-24 3:06

Hold my beer, gonna get popcorn for the show! $Shucks | :-\$

Rules for the FOSW ![^]

MessageBox.Show(!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(_signature) 
    ? $"This is my signature:{Environment.NewLine}{_signature}": "404-Signature not found");

Re: I've had too much Internet

honey the codewitch11-Jul-24 3:15

honey the codewitch

11-Jul-24 3:15

Y'all don't wanna go down the "furry" rabbit hole.

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix

Re: I've had too much Internet

Gary Wheeler12-Jul-24 1:20

Gary Wheeler

12-Jul-24 1:20

We all see what you did there, and we're disgusted and appalled. Laugh | :laugh:

Software Zen: delete this;

Re: I've had too much Internet

OriginalGriff11-Jul-24 3:52

OriginalGriff

11-Jul-24 3:52

So ... they want to modify women so they have sharp teeth, claws, a predilection for dropping dead bodies on your bed, and wake you up by shoving their anus in your face?

I think maybe they should look for a "specialist site" rather than demanding GM ladies. I'll stick to the original model - I get on with those!

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

Re: I've had too much Internet

Daniel Pfeffer11-Jul-24 19:26

Daniel Pfeffer

11-Jul-24 19:26

OriginalGriff wrote:
modify women so they have sharp teeth, claws, a predilection for dropping dead bodies on your bed, and wake you up by shoving their anus in your face?

Women already have the first two attributes. How hard can adding the others be? Smile | :)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.

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