Simple question about removing a user

[Been Told]

I have just read this article:
http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_remove_users

And my question is:
In stop 3, instead of changing the login shell to /dev/null or whatever, could I just remove the line pertaining to that user?

And the whole process seems strange to me. Disabling the user password and changing their shell, removing their files from the system and killing their process.
All of that seem to me to disable the user, but doesn't actually remove them from the system. Or does it?
Can someone enlighten me on this?

[Leszek]

Disabling the account before actually removing it might be usefull for other employees and are the property of the company that owns the workstation/server.
The author just goes along his own scenario.
After removing the user his files would get orphaned or deleted which makes it harder to find/delete them.

[Been Told]

Ok, but my setup is a server with only me as admin. So I can just remove the disabled users from the /etc/passwd file right?

[Leszek]

It's better and safer to use userdel, for example:

userdel beentold

will delete the user beentold without deleting his files

userdel -r

will do the same but will also delete his files

If You'd like to disable the account without deleting it use usermod:

usermod -L beentold

[Been Told]

Thanks, this is really helpful. I really don't like user accounts lying around even if they are disabled.