Good Powershell References

Question

I am looking for a book or a site or something which will hit on the powershell scripting. NOT in command line.

I have a couple of scripts I need to write, writing an application is overboard, but the language is confusing. Programming conventions I am used to from php and C# seem to be thrown out the window on some things, like if statements and calling functions. I am looking for something that will just walk me through some of these basics from a scripted file perspective not in commandline window. Most stuff I find they try to do really complex stuff in CLI not script files.

Answer 1

I originally bought a couple of books: "Windows Powershell Cookbook" and "Windows PowerShell in Action". I kind of used the Cookbook one for some time, and left PowerShell in Action to gather dust - big mistake. PowerShell in Action is very good and is written by Bruce Payette, one of the co-designers of the language:

http://www.manning.com/payette/

Whereas the Cookbook guides you through common-or-garden scenarios and scripts, Bruce's book goes through the language is good depth. It certainly helped me go from WTF -> ah!

PowerShell can be really quite confusing\frustrating when you're used to C# idioms, etc. This was the book that quickly turned me on to the PowerShell idioms that were previously driving me nuts. :)