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From: jeff@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Shared libraries are the problem, not the solution (was Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation)
Message-ID: <DxJL6s.1M2.0.macbeth@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh
References: <ey3zq30yodk.fsf@staffa.aiai.ed.ac.uk> <DxHnx7.xp.0.macbeth@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <ey3u3t6acnm.fsf@staffa.aiai.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 00:25:40 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.lisp:22672 comp.lang.scheme:16822

In article <ey3u3t6acnm.fsf@staffa.aiai.ed.ac.uk> Tim Bradshaw <tfb@aiai.ed.ac.uk> writes:
>* Jeff Dalton wrote:
>> In article <ey3zq30yodk.fsf@staffa.aiai.ed.ac.uk> Tim Bradshaw
>> <tfb@aiai.ed.ac.uk> writes:
>
>>> But C programs do this now.  As far as I can see *everything* on Suns
>>> (solaris 2.5) is linked with 750k of shared library, and anything that
>>> does networking is 2meg and stuff that talks to X is 3 up.  Lisp is
>>> bigger still, but not *that* much bigger. (And of course, these vast C
>>> programs don't perform that well either).
>
>> Suns, though: who cares?  Not Gatesland, don't you know.
>
>Well is windows any smaller?  I rather doubt it -- the thing's a mass
>of DLLs [...]
>
>In fact, do any popular systems still generate really small
>executables for C programs: small binary and not linked with megabytes
>of shared library?  I'm sure things like Plan 9 do, but what about the
>various BSDs and Linux, and commercial Unixes, and Windows NT/95?  

FreeBSD executables can be fairly small.  NetBSD should be similar.
I don't know about Linux.

>If they don't then the argument about Lisp being big isn't so clear any
>more, instead the argument becomes about whether Lisp systems can
>share code the way shared libraries (and shared executables) do.
>Which is just as much of a problem of course.

Why would there be an argument?  Why isn't the answer obviously "yes".

-- jd
