Systemd programming part 2: activation and language issues

Posted Feb 15, 2014 17:29 UTC (Sat) by mbunkus (subscriber, #87248)
In reply to: Systemd programming part 2: activation and language issues by neilbrown
Parent article: Systemd programming part 2: activation and language issues

> Clearly Exec{Start,Stop}{Pre,Post} (and multiple others such as WorkingDirectory) are permitted in both the [Service] section and the [Socket] section. However they have the same meaning in both sections, and no unit file can have both sections, so there would still be no ambiguity if the section headings were absent.

My guess is that it's more about future extensibility without breaking compatibility. While it may be true that there are no conflicts today doesn't mean they won't invent features that allow multiple sections with the same option names. These can be added easily with new sections, but if there were no sections then they might be forced to chose awkward names or prefix quite a lot of those new options, neither or which would improve the ease of use.