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Here are some things that seem reasonable but don't work: FOO="" if [ $FOO = bar ] ; then echo "equal!" else echo "not equal!"

Here are some things that seem reasonable but don't work: FOO="" if [ $FOO = bar ] ; then echo "equal!" else echo "not equal!" fi This errors out with: test.sh: line 4: [: =: unary operator expected This is because the shell is based on text substitution. So once it's replaced "$FOO" with nothing, it ceases to be an actual token, and the expansion of: if [ = bar ] ; then ...is an error. This is terrible. One solution you sometimes see to this is: FOO="" if [ x$FOO = xbar ] ; then echo "equal!" else echo "not equal!" fi This handles the empty string and other simple strings, but once $FOO has any spaces or shell metacharacters in it, it will break also. This is also terrible. > It's saying systemd has a "better design", which means it is a shinier, fancier new toy to play with. You seem dismissive of new technology. If you want to keep using CVS while browsing the web with lynx and sending your email with pine, more power to you (after all, graphical web browsing is just a "new feature"). But the rest of us are moving on.

peterwwillis 13y ago
It's not new technology that bothers me. Me having to do more work bothers me. Systemd is going to make my job more difficult in terms of troubleshooting and maintenance - way more difficult than remembering that an operator requires two operands to evaluate. What's really funny about systemd is I think that all its features have tons of value, and I would definitely use them. But I also think its creators are completely fucking batshit insane for making it mandatory to replace huge chunks of the operating system just to get those features. You should be able to just run systemd as a normal user process and still maintain the same level of functionality, but for some fucked up reason somebody thought it would be a great idea to make it a completely non-backwards-compatible non-portable operating system requirement. It's a stupendously bad idea, and the only reasoning anyone can come up with for why they designed it that way is "It's Advanced!" Of course, I should add the caveat that I don't care at all about boot times, and so people who are obsessed with short boot times will find systemd very refreshing, in the way an Apple user finds replacing their old iPhone with a new iPhone very refreshing.

peterwwillis 13y ago

It's not new technology that bothers me. Me having to do more work bothers me. Systemd is going to make my job more difficult in terms of troubleshooting and maintenance - way more difficult than remembering that an operator requires two operands to evaluate. What's really funny about systemd is I think that all its features have tons of value, and I would definitely use them. But I also think its creators are completely fucking batshit insane for making it mandatory to replace huge chunks of the operating system just to get those features. You should be able to just run systemd as a normal user process and still maintain the same level of functionality, but for some fucked up reason somebody thought it would be a great idea to make it a completely non-backwards-compatible non-portable operating system requirement. It's a stupendously bad idea, and the only reasoning anyone can come up with for why they designed it that way is "It's Advanced!" Of course, I should add the caveat that I don't care at all about boot times, and so people who are obsessed with short boot times will find systemd very refreshing, in the way an Apple user finds replacing their old iPhone with a new iPhone very refreshing.