There is a difference between the best C, and scripts that you can modify in-place.
But, like some other comments have said, I was young enough to dodge the drama. I basically grew up with systemd and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. The biggest problem I have is that Ubuntu Server defaults (or used to default) to having the system wait on network interfaces, which is annoying when I want to build a desktop off of it. And sometimes on shutdown it waits for some daemon I don't care about to quit. Which is probably just a bug in the daemon.
The transition period of any new tech is usually horrid.
But now that things aren't buggy, being unable to modify them in place is a good thing. It sets a clear boundary that this is not how you do things on a modern system, so you can always expect systemd to be the same, consistent, non customized thing it always is.
i'm not going to argue it's a bad thing, i actually really like macs and think they hide a lot of details making time and space for other pursuits, although since you cede user serviceability it's important to purchase a service plan and that you don't try anything that wasn't provided for in the design.
maybe simple composable parts are past their prime. i always loved the simplicity of inetd. it was both self describing and inclusive. you could write an internet service without any knowledge at all of sockets and learn about the system by simply looking at it. but i suppose that's given way to large monolithic daemons these days.
personally though, i always thought the simplicity and the composability of unix philosophy was what bred systems that outperformed their competition in terms of security and extensibility. so many commercial systems reflected apparent power grabs within the corporate structures that produced them... i suppose that when you see foss monoliths like this, it's the same game playing out on a different field.
> i always loved the simplicity of inetd. it was both self describing and inclusive. you could write an internet service without any knowledge at all of sockets and learn about the system by simply looking at it.
You could achieve the same thing with systemd socket activation :)
You can configure systemd to kill lingering applications, it was defaulted to false because some old UNIX tools liked to linger in the background forever.
But, like some other comments have said, I was young enough to dodge the drama. I basically grew up with systemd and I don't feel like I'm missing anything. The biggest problem I have is that Ubuntu Server defaults (or used to default) to having the system wait on network interfaces, which is annoying when I want to build a desktop off of it. And sometimes on shutdown it waits for some daemon I don't care about to quit. Which is probably just a bug in the daemon.