Use the RethinkDB C# driver in PowerShell on Linux

PowerShell is a scripting and command line shell built on top of the .NET runtime. Although it was originally created for Windows, Microsoft recently introduced an open source version of PowerShell powered by the cross-platform compatible .NET Core. Users can now download and run PowerShell on Linux and Mac OS X. One of PowerShell’s strengths is its interoperability with the .NET ecosystem. PowerShell can load types and methods from .NET assemblies, making it possible for PowerShell scripts to incorporate functionality that is implemented in practically any C# library. That capability also makes PowerShell a great environment for interactively exploring C# APIs. When Microsoft announced the availability of PowerShell on Linux earlier this month, I tried it out in a Docker container on my home Ubuntu server. As an experiment, I had it load up the C# RethinkDB driver developed by Brian Chavez . Using the driver, I was able to instantiate a RethinkDB database connection and perform queries from the comfortable confines of the interactive PowerShell command line environment.