Write-Host considered Harmful, so what should we do?

Jeffrey Snover says Write-Host Considered Harmful

In summary:

For RESULTS of an operation use "Write-Output"
For Messages use Write-Verbose

Hmmm.

But Write-Output doesn't let you specify nonewline and the relevant color.

I love those things a lot!

Perhaps Write-Host is the right thing for a lot of my usages.

Scripting guys recommend this approach to changing text color when using Write-Output:

$t = $host.ui.RawUI.ForegroundColor
$host.ui.RawUI.ForegroundColor = "DarkGreen"
Write-Output "this is green output"
$host.ui.RawUI.ForegroundColor = $t

Really?

And someone provides this helpful example on stackoverflow of wrapping it into a "Write-ColorOutput" function.

function Write-ColorOutput($ForegroundColor)
{
    # save the current color
    $fc = $host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor

    # set the new color
    $host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor = $ForegroundColor

    # output
    if ($args) {
        Write-Output $args
    }
    else {
        $input | Write-Output
    }

    # restore the original color
    $host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor = $fc
}

# test
Write-ColorOutput red (ls)
Write-ColorOutput green (ls)
ls | Write-ColorOutput yellow

It doesn't solve the no new line feature, and it is horribly un-parallel-able (if you lose sleep over that kind of thing like some of my buddies)

So here's what I'm going to do:

Keep on using Write-host for a little longer, if I am using colors or nonewline flag. Yes I am.

(And I reserve the right to change this at any second.)

Tag: Don't follow me I'm lost too.

Write-Host considered Harmful, so what should we do?

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