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

[Alan Shutko <ats acm org>]

>>>>> "L" == Liss Svanberg <lisss@ydab.se> writes:

L> The windows shared library problem doesn't exist becuse they have
L> got a different format, it's because virtally every little stupid
L> program comes with it's own shared librarys.  UNIX (or Gnome or any
L> app enviroment/OS) can end up there too...  (... and I wouldn't
L> like it that way)

No, that's not the problem at all.  If every application came with
itss own shared libraries _and left other apps libs alone_, there
would be no problems.

But that's not the way it is on Windows.  Apps commonly install copies
of whatever shared libraries they used, such as the ones which come
with their compiler, ones which come with the OS, etc.  There's no
version control to speak of on Windows, so letting apps run the
version they need is impossible.  So things break.

As I understand it, it's _also_ the case on Windows that it's better
to use shared libraries for lots of things because the paging
subsystem there is terrible, and using shared libs decreases a
programs resource consumption.

In contrast, I don't see that on Unix or in Gnome.  Apps use shared
libraries when they want to share functionality between apps.  For
example, would you want the GNOME libs staticly linked into
everything?  Or IMLIB?  Maybe zlib should be staticly linked, because
I've actually seen problems related to having different versions of
that around.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
DM Advice:  He who buys the pizza, lives.