[GTALUG] why I like shared libraries -- no longer a popular position

[Dave Collier-Brown]

On 9/25/23 10:19, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

> | From: David Collier-Brown via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
>
> In this case, a simple bug needs to be fixed.  No interface change.  The
> number of packages to update is the number with copies of this buggy code.
> Copies count, references (shred libraries) are free.

The workaround for the hard problem was to use static linking, which
makes distributing bug-fixes painfully difficult. That was one of the
major motivations for shared libraries in the first place.

> I guess that I've been spoiled by C's maturity.  The core libraries tend
> to mutate slowly and the Committee has as a base that revisions should not
> break programs (but they may break implementations).

At Sun, we committed a 5-person team under a founder (David J. Brown) to
beating immature changes into the ground.  It was too dangerous to leave
to a volunteer community, although numerous volunteer efforts helped us
greatly.

--dave

--
David Collier-Brown,         | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
dave.collier-brown at indexexchange.com |              -- Mark Twain


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