this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
111 points (88.8% liked)
Technology
85059 readers
2305 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
yes and yes and yes, except:
So are systemd timers. Seriously. I understood this sort of argument in the years when systemd was relatively new, but nowadays ... c'mon, it's 2 config files in a very simple (the simplest form is just 2 headings with one variable definition each) and common format and (optionally) one command to reload the daemon.
Maybe adding a line to your list of cron jobs is slightly quicker, but you have none of the things systemd offers on top.
OK, tbf I don't know how much (ana)cron provides. Cleaning up the process tree? Restart conditions? Avoiding service duplicates? Advanced starting & repeating like "5min after boot" or "only after this other service has succeeded"? Can it read abbreviations like 'daily' or does it all need to be in that cryptic cron syntax?
Its hard to argue that 2 config files both multiple lines long is simpler then a single line in an existing file. Adding a service to cron is just simpler. But adding all the extra bit you are going to want on top increases the things you need to learn to do and configure correctly.
IMO systemd timers are simpler to get right at a little bit more of an upfront cost to learning how they work. But cron is still simpler to just get something working without caring that much. I still find that ends up biting you in the longer term though though all the missing features you need to add manually on top of that one basic line you added.
The ageism creeps out of this one.