Good method of organizing your scripts/code

N2IT

I was wondering if the forum could recommend a method or tool (both potentially) to save scripts for future use.

Example PowerShell, VBA, etc. Something that I could have one set file organized enough to go back through with little down time. I understand the concept of writing in instructions into the script so it's easy to see what it is automating or "doing".

I'm not a developer by trade so any experience or useful ideas would be greatly appreciated.

SteveO86

When I did desktop support years ago, I'd write VBS scripts to automate as much as I could.

I just saved each of those scripts to a file and created a naming convention for each file. Not sure if powershell is the same way. After I while though the list did start adding up, but it was such repetitious work I just navigated to the that folder using the keyboard used the keyboard letters to get the script I needed.

NetworkVeteran

N2IT wrote: »

I was wondering if the forum could recommend a method or tool (both potentially) to save scripts for future use.

Source code management is important to anyone who regularly develops code. You don't just want a way to save code snippet A, but also code snippet A v1.0 vs. code snippet A v2.0! This comes in handy when you discover your new code has a bug and you want to roll-back or figure out precisely what was changed to narrow down anissue.

The best tool is often highly dependent on your environment. However, there's a tool that's free, often pre-installed on Mac and Linux boxes, simple to start using, and solid enough to be used by large corporations called "CVS". It's been my go-to when I've pick-up one-off projects that don't justify a more sophisticated versioning system.

http://ximbiot.com/cvs/manual/cvs-1.11.23/cvs.html

wes allen

Maybe Evernote?

NotHackingYou

I like oneNote or I just save them in their native format, well named in a directory structure.

paul78

A source-code management system like NetworkVeteran suggest is probably a good way to go. There are a few systems which can integrate into CVS. But the learning curve for CVS can be steep. A lot of teams and even one-person shops also use Subversion or SVN. SVN was designed as a replacement to CVS and may be easier if you simply have a few code projects to organize and share.

If you are using Windows - I like TorroiseSVN which is very easy to get up and running - TortoiseSVN

CodeBlox

My vote goes to SVN. It's also available on Windows and it integrates with explorer.

ptilsen

Definitely need a source control system. I implemented Wandisco UberSVN for a client a couple years ago, It was fairly easy to implement and had some nice features, meant to be more of a commercial solution, with support avalable and everything. There are other distributions as well.

I was looking into this recently for the same reason, and I came to the conclusion that Team Foundation Server might be the best for working with PowerShell specifically, but it's not free. It is if you have a Technet subscription or the right type of agreement with MS. Here's a comparison between TFS and Tortoise SVN, a popular SVN client. I've also read Mercurial is good. I haven't worked with any of them enough to make a specific recommendation or really appreciate the difference.

Let us know what you end up with and how it goes. I am definitely planning on implementing one soon, but I'm definitely having a tough time weighing my options. However, I would probably have gone with TFS already if I could get the okay from my boss.

Bender Rodriguez

I use one note quite a lot. I didn't like it at first, but it really helps me organize scripts (and complete router/switch configs) by year and by client. I would give it a chance.

N2IT

Thanks for providing a lot of solutions. I'll implement a quick one now just to maintain what I have created and then think about transitioning to a more scalable solution.

Claymoore

I used to just **** them all in a folder and rely on my naming convention to organize them, but that wasn't working for me any more. One, I now have too many scripts. Two, I don't really need to run a particular script again. What I want to do is borrow code from previous scripts to create new ones specific for my current client. OneNote helps me do that. I always have it open, so all I have to do is flip over to my scripts tab and grab the code I need. I don't need anything as fancy as source control and versioning that would require something like TFS.

undomiel

I had started thinking about this lately as I was finding myself taking longer and longer to search through all of my script folders for scripts to take chunks from. OneNote sounds like an excellent idea to me. Thanks for bringing the topic up. I probably would have ended up tossing everything into TortoiseSVN otherwise.

blargoe

I may give one note a shot myself. I was just pondering this same issue last week.