Re: Merits and uses of static vs. dynamic libraries
On Apr 13, 8:53 am, SG <s.gesem...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 13 Apr., 08:28, Paavo Helde <pa...@nospam.please.ee> wrote:
Dynamic libraries are a later innovation, the biggest
selling point being the byte-saving both on disk and in
memory as shared libraries can be potentially shared by many
applications at the same time. OTOH, it becomes much more
difficult to keep track the versions and ensure that each
application uses the right shared libraries, these problems
are often regarded as "the DLL hell" in the Windows world.
To avoid this, each application often uses its own set of
semi-standard DLL-s packaged together with the application,
thus negating most of any memory comsumption effect which it
might have had.
Another selling point would be IMHO:
You can update a shared library (i.e. bug fixes -- assuming
binary compatibility) without the need to recompile every
application that uses it.
That's probably the biggest argument against it. You end up
with programs that have never been tested in the actual version
the client is using. It's a valid argument for things like the
system API (which is usually a bundled dynamic object), or the
data base interface (your code can access several different
versions of Oracle, depending on what the client has installed),
but very few people are working at that level, where it makes
sense.
--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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