On 2005-05-06, at 18:14, Andrew Haley wrote:
Rutger Ovidius writes:
Friday, May 6, 2005, 8:06:49 AM, you wrote:
AH> But Java isn't compatible with static linking. Java is, by its very
AH> nature, a dynamic language, where classes invoke and even generate
AH> other classes on the fly. There is no way when linking to determine
AH> what set of libraries is required. This is a simple fact, and no
AH> amount of declaring " this is what users want!" is going to change
AH> it.
I didn't know that java had a nature.
Now you do.
It has features. Some features will work when it is implemented in a certain way and some won't.
The set of features that work when linking statically is unspecified and changes over time, depending on implementation details within the library.
If we wanted to come up with a new language subset compatible with static linkage we could do that, but it would be a substantial design effort and we'd need someone to do the work. Personally speaking, I don't think it's a very good idea, as a lot of the Java language as specified depends on dynamic linking, but I wouldn't obstruct someone who really wanted to do it.
You don't understand that it's perfectly valid to put PIC symbols inside an .a file.
From the users perspective this may very well appear to be like static linkage.
There are no principal reasons to shatter every single application in to a heap
of .so files.
