It was mid 2014 when I decided I was going to read through the about help files and rewrite them, right here on this website. What a dumb idea.

I did a couple and then, as if the world needed to tell me something, I read a Tweet from Jeffery Hicks. I can’t quote it verbatim, but it was along the lines of don’t rewrite help files; they already exist for a reason. I’ve never thought about it until now, but just maybe Jeffery was speaking to me without using my name. Lucky for me, I only completed those two, and not anywhere near the full list of which I’ve included the first five below.

PS > Get-Help -Name about_*

Name                              Category  Module Synopsis
----                              --------  ------  --------
about_ActivityCommonParameters    HelpFile          Describes the parameters that Windows PowerShell
about_Aliases                     HelpFile          Describes how to use alternate names for cmdle...
about_Arithmetic_Operators        HelpFile          Describes the operators that perform arithmeti...
about_Arrays                      HelpFile          Describes arrays, which are data structures de...
about_Assignment_Operators        HelpFile          Describes how to use operators to assign value...
...

On my machine right now, there’s 148 of them! I wouldn’t have even been able to get to 300 if that’s all I wrote about. That’s if I would’ve even gotten that far. I’m glad I stopped, as I don’t believe I would’ve learned as much, had as good of a time, and become a resource for people looking for answers to their PowerShell questions.

PS > (Get-Help -Name about_* | Measure-Object).Count
148

I started this endeavor in June 2014 and now, it’s August 2018. That’s four years and two months, or 50 months. At 300 posts, that’s exactly an average 6 posts per month, or one a week with a couple extra jammed into the same month, each month.

I still love PowerShell. I’m still often rewarded by deciding to take my time to experiment with it. Often I take my experimentation straight to a blog post, in the moment I realized that someone else, would benefit from what I just learned. I’m grateful I took a chance at it, and I’m not done. I’m sure I’ll come up with more to write about and more that I will desire to share with the PowerShell community. And with any luck, it won’t be an about topic rewrite.

Thanks to everyone that’s stopped by over the years.

– Tommy Maynard