static vs shared (was: Re: Win vs. UNIX usability )

[Liss Svanberg <lisss ydab se>]

Once upon a time Tim Moore [tmoore@tembel.org] wrote:

> There are little things the mac does right that no other OS seems
> to do right (as well as things it does wrong - like cooperative
> multitasking - that noone else does wrong); a lot of this
> seems to have much to do with the structure of applications on
> the OS. While it's as much (or more) of a bug than a feature,
> mac applications seem to be much more monolithic than PC/Windows
> or Linux applications, in that they seem to reside in a much
> smaller number of files, and/or _not_ use shared libraries to
> any great degree. While this may not be _better_, it looks
> _tidier_, and is probably easier for a rank beginner to keep


Actually, for most applications, *not* using shared librarys is better than 
using them.
<Big noisy storm of protests>

Okay, standard librarys, librarys provided by the OS, other main eviroments 
and the like, is actually better than static - because you allways knows 
that all other apps are using the correct version.

However, *Problems* begin to arise as soon as other, smaller applications 
starts to puke up *their* own shared librarys. In the windows world this 
actually has become one of the main Sources of Greater Problems, including 
system crashes! I haven't got *any* understanding for why, say a word 
processor (no names) should inplement anything of itself as a shared 
library. Why should it ever? If I would decide to write an application that 
uses the mentioned word processor, I would use it as a CORBA object, and if 
I was about to write my own word processor, I would surely never use the 
shared librarys of anything elese than the OS, and the surrounding 
enviroment.

So actually, I think that here, the "macy way" really is the better one. 
Keep standalone applications static as much as possible! They becomes 
simpler, and thus less craschpone.

mvh
// Liss
liss@ydab.se