[Python-Dev] Preventing 1.5 extensions crashing under 1.6/2.0 Python

[Thomas Wouters]

On Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 01:54:05PM -0500, Paul Prescod wrote:

[Quoting Guido, IIRC]
> > > Because Python supports a configuration time option to link modules
> > > statically.

> Of course. I wasn't thinking. But here's another naive question, on what
> platforms is it significantly better to statically link and how is it
> significantly better?

Well, platforms that do not support dynamic linking/loading, for one ! :-)
Not that frequent nowadays, but still something to take into account. Also,
some platforms, like BSDI until not that long ago, use a binary format like
COFF, which doesn't support shared libraries all that well. It's more of a
hack (and a slightly insecure one, at that) than a structural solution.
Which is why BSDI moved to ELF, thankfully :-)

Also, shared libraries are an aditional performance hit, because of the
extra layer of indirection (sometimes more than one) and on some
architectures different memory layout. So people might choose to link (some)
modules static for that reason.

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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