Shared Library Objectives (Was: Shared Lib Question (ISC))

[Rob Bunten]

In article <1991May13.144438.21103 at sco.COM>, larryp at sco.COM (Larry
Philps) writes:
>Actaully, I think part of the reason there are so many implementations is
>that there are so many conflicting goals.  Just what do you want from your
>shared library system?
>
>Possibilites:  (Note, by ATT, I mean AT&T SVR3 shared libraries)
>
>    1) Ability to easily create a shared library:
>    2) Fast Startup times:
>    3) Fast execution:
>    4) Maximum Memory sharing between processes
>    5) Easy maintenance
>
>These are the result of some intellectual lunches I had with a friend.
>They took place a while ago so I might have forgotten a goal or two.

One you haven't mention is reduction of on-disk program size. One of the
rumours I've heard is that Sun introduced shared libraries to reduce the number
of tapes needed for OS upgrades.