I’ve seen interest really growing in PowerShell over the last year or two. The editor included with PowerShell v2 though, does leave much to be desired. I can say from experience the v3 editor is FAR better, but still has some room to grow.
There are many good editors on the market, but many people just getting into PowerShell need something cheap (i.e free) to learn on. I’ve found the PowerSE editor from PowerWF to be an excellent choice to fill this gap.
As I indicated it is indeed free. And for a free editor it’s remarkably full featured. It has a very good help system, intellisense, and the ability to see your call stack. It also has a variable pane where you can see all of the variables, and their values for the current session.
You can have multiple tabs open, each with a different script. It has some customizability, you can set the font for both the editor and the console. My favorite feature is the very easy to use debugger, complete with breakpoints and the ability to examine variables through the aforementioned variable pane.
I still think it’s important to know the PowerShell IDE, as it’s on all the latest builds of Windows. But once you have grasped it’s basics, go grab yourself a copy of PowerSE. Only then will you really be able to enjoy the happiness that is PowerShell.
Arcane Code 