The behaviour of systemctl.

[Aaron Sowry]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:03:05AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote:
> Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and
> bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it.

I didn't realise there was a bug for this, which is it?

> Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the
> purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output.

This is not just purism for purism's sake, I think the point is being lost here
somewhere. To clarify, coding applications in this way results in:

- Additional code to deal with output logic in different situations, which like
all code, is potentially buggy. This is especially true when there is
distribution-specific logic in the code.

- Additional flags and corresponding documentation to modify behaviour which has
been imposed on you by the author (--no-pager, adding/removing column headers,
enabling/disabling --full output)

- Output format from a command being non-obvious unless you are intimately familiar
with the specific output logic of the command.

- Additional dependencies and potential non-portability to other systems which
may not satisfy these dependencies.

- Increased learning curve, since behaviour differs from most other commonly
used applications.

The list goes on. If you want to call it purism then fine, just don't pretend
there are no valid reasons for it.

> I'm happy this is the default.  If you're not, why
> not file a bug?  It's more effective than complaining on a downstream
> mailing list.

I already did, bug 713567. It was CLOSED WONTFIX within 45 minutes.

/Aaron
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