From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id NAA09707; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 13:38:54 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA08637; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 13:38:53 +0100 (MET) Received: from rabelais.socialtools.net (rabelais.socialtools.net [81.2.94.243]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i2RCdVKW006169; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 13:39:31 +0100 Received: by rabelais.socialtools.net (Postfix, from userid 108) id 9CEB623301; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 12:38:51 +0000 (GMT) Received: from socialtools.net (chaucer.socialtools.net [81.2.94.242]) by rabelais.socialtools.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 725C6232FD; Sat, 27 Mar 2004 12:38:50 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <406575DA.2090908@socialtools.net> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 12:38:50 +0000 From: Benjamin Geer User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113 X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en, fr, it MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Xavier Leroy Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Delaying module initialization References: <20040326165943.GA18734@redhat.com> <20040327.022627.38703728.yoriyuki@mbg.ocn.ne.jp> <20040326184424.GA20895@redhat.com> <8765cre8el.dlv@vanicat.homelinux.org> <20040327101944.GA1941@redhat.com> <20040327121832.B29840@pauillac.inria.fr> In-Reply-To: <20040327121832.B29840@pauillac.inria.fr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on rabelais.socialtools.net X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.63 X-Miltered: at nez-perce by Joe's j-chkmail ("http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr")! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 hassling:01 statically:01 low-level:01 insecure:01 implemented:01 libc:01 linked:01 caml:01 caml:01 unix:02 module:03 wrote:03 library:03 gnome:04 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 388 Xavier Leroy wrote: > (As far as "hassling" goes, this will only reinforce my conviction > that shared libraries are useless. So, don't do that.) I don't mean to hassle you, but could you explain this conviction a bit? If shared libraries are useless, why do all Unix and Linux programs use libc as a shared library? Why don't they statically link to it? I've always assumed that this is because nobody wants 'ls' and 'cp' to be over a megabyte in size. The lead developer of GNOME and Evolution (which are written in C) started the Mono project (a free implementation of .NET) because, as he put it: There is a point in your life when you realize that you have written enough destructors, and have spent enough time tracking down a memory leak, and you have spend enough time tracking down memory corruption, and you have spent enough time using low-level insecure functions, and you have implemented way too many linked lists.[1] Now there is debate about whether to write the next version of GNOME in C#. If Caml could make shared libraries, perhaps those sorts of libraries (very large libraries, meant to be used by many small programs) would have a better chance of being written in Caml. Ben [1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-February/msg00031.html ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners