Why no libpython2.x.so in redhat?

[Andrew MacIntyre]

On 28 May 2002, Kragen Sitaker wrote:

> spam at fisher.forestry.uga.edu (Chris Fonnesbeck) writes:
> > I'm just trying to figure out why my program is running fine on
> > Debian, but not on RedHat.  Here's some simple code that illustrates
> > what is not working:
>
> The standard Python distribution builds itself in a brain-dead
> fashion: all the code that implements the Python language is
> statically linked into the interpreter binary and also available in a
> static-linking library.  The result is that other programs that embed
> Python must also incorporate that library, which is about 3.5M in 2.1.1.

Brain-dead is how you might think of it, but it has its benefits.  PIC
code has a performance cost, for example, which matter to some people.
Funnily enough, linking extensions doesn't introduce a library dependency
that can cause its own problems, either.  So its not black and white, even
if you can't see the shades of grey.

BTW, that static library is with debug symbols, which get stripped out by
the install, so the actual executable is only ~700kB - depending on compiler
and optimisations.

--
Andrew I MacIntyre                     "These thoughts are mine alone..."
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