On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 10:01:34AM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 11:50 PM, Keith Keller > <kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote: > >>> > >> 1. See the systemd myths web page > >> http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html > > > > In the interest of full disclosure, that page is written by one of the > > primary authors of systemd, so we shouldn't expect an unbiased opinion. > > (Not saying it's wrong, only that it's important to understand the > > perspective an author might have.) > > One thing that bothers me very much when reading that is the several > mentions of how you don't need to learn shell syntax as though that is > an advantage or as if the author didn't already know and use it > already. As if he didn't understand that _every command you type at > the command line_ is shell syntax. Or as if he thinks learning a > bunch of special-case language quirks is somehow better than one that > you can use in many other situations. When you get something that > fundamental wrong it is hard to take the rest seriously. You mean this paragraph? "systemd certainly comes with a learning curve. Everything does. However, we like to believe that it is actually simpler to understand systemd than a Shell-based boot for most people. Surprised we say that? Well, as it turns out, Shell is not a pretty language to learn, it's syntax is arcane and complex. systemd unit files are substantially easier to understand, they do not expose a programming language, but are simple and declarative by nature. That all said, if you are experienced in shell, then yes, adopting systemd will take a bit of learning." I think the point is that systemd unit file syntax is significantly simpler than shell syntax -- can we agree on that? It also is significantly less-featureful than a shell programming language. Yes, you're going to be using shell elsewhere, but in my experience, the structure of most SysVinit scripts is nearly identical, and where it deviates is where things often get confusing to people not as familiar with shell scripting. Many of the helper functions in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions seem to exist to STOP people from writing unique shell code in their init scripts. -- Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>