This whole debate saddens me

This whole debate saddens me

Instead they (we) all have a long list of things we want to learn, and systemd is being forced up near the top of the list ahead of things that we care a lot more about.

One of the nice things about systemd is that it is actually a lot easier to learn than the current hodgepodge of nearly-unrelated tools. For example, there is one basic configuration file format that applies to all parts of systemd, whereas in the traditional setup no two configuration files seem to have the same basic format (let alone semantics). Also, you no longer need to be a shell programmer of some experience merely to understand the way background services are started, stopped, and monitored.

This isn't immediately beneficial to experienced system administrators who have spent the last 30 years getting used to the idiosyncrasies of the traditional setup, but will be a great boon in the future to new people coming in, especially as systemd settles down and better documentation, training manuals, books, etc. are written. As a Linux instructor and author I'm looking forward to my job becoming that much easier as the traditional setup is being phased out and a lot of the stuff that currently makes new Linux administrators tear their hair out simply goes away.

(Cynical minds will of course view the vocal resistance against systemd among some “veteran Unix admins” as fueled at least in part by the old guard running scared of no longer being the undisputed demigods of arcane Unix knowledge, as embodied in the traditional init setup. If my job security depended on my being the only person who understands the company's 20-year buildup of tweaked init scripts, service monitors downloaded from somewhere on the net, and hand-coded hacks that are needed to work around the default system's deficiencies, I too would probably be very afraid of something that threatens to make all of that obsolete.)