Sure, we all need to be able to write scripts; that's been true quite independent of Sql Server or indeed of the existence of relational databases for a very long time. what changes is which scripting languages one needs to know.

Back in the SQL Server 2000 days, it was easy to get by with T-SQL scripts, CMDEXEC scripts, and Active-X scripts (which in my case meant JScript scripts; I never bothered to find out if SQL Agent would allow VBScript, because I dislike the language) and SQL Server Agent supported all three. I haven't come across anything much I couldn't handle with one of those (particularly as it's easy to make calls between JScript and CMDEXEC Script or from either to T-SQL) although I occassionally used other things without bothering to learn them properly because the uses were pretty well one-offs. As for Powershell, which is one of the scripting languages that I've I've used but never bothered to learn properly because I didn't expect to use it enough to make the investment of time to learn it worth while, I suppose it may become necessary sometime because MS have deprecated the Active-X capability of SQL Agent, but given that the Active-X capabiliy is going to continue to be available in at least the next two releases there are probably quite a few of us who may not have to worry about it.

My wory is that dropping the Active-X subsystem and using Powershell instead may not be a step forwards. Is it just churn for churn's sake? Or does it really provide new capability or make scripting easier?