why do we use systemd?

[Timothy Murphy]

Garry T. Williams wrote:

> Have you looked at the manual pages?  I know of no other project that
> has the breadth and depth of documentation that systemd has.

This is probably a minority view but I don't think a man page should try
to tell you everything about a command.

When I first used Unix (version 5) it was explicitly stated
that a man page should literally fit on one page.

In particular I don't think it is necessary to list dozens of options,
some of which are rarely if ever used, just because they exist.
(I recall that there used to be a regular competition
for the most useless option one could add to "cat".)

To me, a man page should address the likely needs of 95% of users,
and should use any spare space to give examples of usage.
A pointer to a reference work would be a useful addition.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland