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Date:      Thu, 28 Aug 1997 00:07:31 -0500 (EST)
From:      "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
To:        perlsta@sunyit.edu (Alfred Perlstein)
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: shared libraries?
Message-ID:  <199708280507.AAA07664@dyson.iquest.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970827201206.27457A-100000@server.local.sunyit.edu> from Alfred Perlstein at "Aug 27, 97 08:16:16 pm"

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Alfred Perlstein said:
> 
> This is a strange question/idea, 
> 
> Why is the standard C library like the code in string.h, stdio.h ect. in
> shared libraries?  if need be, the programer could change his code and
> make a new library.
>
We do have a shared lib facility.

> 
> If most of the libraries were converted to a shared lib format wouldn't
> that reduce memory and disk space requirements tremendously?
> not only that, but complile times and exec times would soar, woudn't they?
>
Believe it or not, shared libs often hurt more than help.  Even with an
ideal scheme that is prelinked, a program can take MORE memory, not less.
We share the .text of programs even without using shared libs.  In the
case of shells, shared libs are usually a loose.  A rule of thumb that I use
is (These are only my opinions):

App type			Shared libc?

X applications*			YES
Shells				NO
Favorite editors		no
WWW servers			no
FTP servers			no
Sendmail			no
Build toolchain			yes/no
Random test pgm			YES
Other commonly invoked pgms	yes
Anything in /bin		NO
Anything in /sbin		NO
Anything in /usr/bin		yes
Anything in /usr/sbin		no
Anything in /usr/libexec	no

* X applications above can be extended to any package with an extensive
library suite.


-- 
John
dyson@freebsd.org
jdyson@nc.com



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