In Part I of this series, I was supposed to begin offering reasons as to why someone would want to stop writing scripts, and start writing functions. I got a bit distracted. Instead, we discussed making an easy, and mostly meaningless, function. The reasoning for this, was because I get this feeling that moving from a script writer to a function writer can be a unsettling endeavor for some. I liken it to bicycle training wheels. They’re so easy, and reliable. It’s just not until you take them off, and get your balance, that you suddenly realize all the things they actually kept your from doing. Learn to balance this bike, and then you can start jumping off your makeshift ramp in the middle of the cul-de-sac, instead of just riding around it.

Speaking of cul-de-sacs, here’s another distraction. It’s our view from Friday morning. That’s not what it usually looks like in Tucson, AZ. Fog is really, really rare. In one of these follow ups, I’ll be sure to include our typical desert view, uninterrupted by “winter” type weather events.

Functions can get advanced, sure, but once you know a few things about them, you’ll never look back. You’ll continue to learn more and more about them. There’s a whole new level of being proud of your work, as you transition to function writing. You’re going to sleep better at night knowing you’ve written five singled-purposed functions vs. that one long script you secretly hate to open and troubleshoot. Maybe, it’s not even a secret.

Look, at the end of the day, a function is nothing more than a scriptblock you can invoke by entering its name. You run commands all the time, maybe even a few, one right after the other. Now you can do the same thing, but by only typing a function’s name and pressing enter.

Let’s assume there’s was a point in time I often wanted to know the date, the system drive letter, the current PowerShell host major version, and return a random number between 1 and 20. If I grew tired of doing this manually, I could create a function to do this for me. It’s not likely this would ever be useful outside this post, but it certainly helps highlight what using a function does. It’s essentially four commands in one. Easy.

Function Start-RandomStuff {
    "Date : $(Get-Date)"
    "System Drive : $env:SystemDrive"
    "Host Major Version : $((Get-Host).Version.Major)"
    "Random Number (1-20) : $(Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 20)"
}
PS > Start-RandomStuff
Date : 02/13/2018 22:58:00
System Drive : C:
Host Major Version : 5
Random Number (1-20) : 3

Think of a function as a wrapper. You can wrap the execution of various (related) commands by running one command. This isn’t to say our example ran related commands so much; it really didn’t. The point is to keep in mind that functions should be single purposed. They’re tight, short, and to the point. If you start wondering if you’re adding too much procedural code to your function, you probably already have. If you keep adding to the function you’re currently writing, then you better be able to explain why.

I’ve done it again! I haven’t really hit those reasons as to why functions, over scripts. Or perhaps I have a little. I do have some specifics topics, and for the second time, let’s hope the next part of this series, gets serious. There really are a few specific things I want to share — reasons why functions are all you want to be writing.

Back soon. And hopefully, with a non winter picture of the cul-de-sac.

Part III is now available.