Shared libraries

[db at cbosg.UUCP]

A reason for shared libraries that doesn't seem to have gotten much
discussion is: being able to update common application libraries without
having to recompile & load the entire system.

For example, our product uses a database library that is referenced by the
majority of the application code.  If we need to modify this library, we
rebuild the entire system to make sure that everything is properly loaded.
This takes *eight hours* (or more) on a PDP-11/70 (NOT including the time
to load the resultant tapes and restart the system).

Most of our application programs can be updated in the field by putting
the revised version on the customer's machine and compiling and installing
it there, but this cannot be easily done with the library code.

So, some kind of shared-library mechanism that would allow new versions
of common code to be installed (as long as the function calls remain the
same) sure would be handy.

-Dave Bursik/BTL Columbus/..cbosg!db, ..cbosgd!db