Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!samsung!uunet!sugar!peter From: peter@Sugar.NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future) Keywords: Future, Amiga, etc. Message-ID: <1991Jun23.145612.16729@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> Date: 23 Jun 91 14:56:12 GMT References: <81@ryptyde.UUCP> <1991Jun22.020815.233@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> <95@ryptyde.UUCP> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 58 The Strange and Wonderful Daniel Tracy: "Responding to the following: "``Since with shared libraries and shared text the application itself is usually small, this is rarely a problem. Certainly you can run more programs on an Amiga than on a Mac with the same amount of RAM.'' "Can you explain to me what shared libraries are? It sounds to me like object-oriented code that is sharable across applications. That would be interesting." -- <95@ryptyde.UUCP> Shared libraries are basically utility routines, like the ones in the Mac ROM and system file, but loaded on demand by the programmer. They can be ones provided by Commodore, or third party ones. Here's what I have in my libs: directory: 1.SYS:> dir libs: .info arp.library asl.library commodities.library diskfont.library iff.library iffparse.library kd_freq.library mathieeedoubbas.library mathieeedoubtrans.library mathieeesingtrans.library mathtrans.library powerpacker.library Readme req.library rexxsupport.library rexxsyslib.library screenshare.library translator.library version.library xprascii.library Some of these are Commodore's (like diskfont.library), some are third party (like arp.library), and some are third party stuff Commodore has added to the standard distribution (like commodities.library). > Basically follows the same philosophy of resources, eh? But shared among programs: if two applications use arp.library, then only one copy is loaded. When they're done with it, it's purged. The entire Amiga operating system is basically a collection of these libraries and various processes that call them. If the Mac has had an equivalent to shared libraries, then why are Mac programs so large? Most Amiga programs are under 50K: 1.SYS:> list work:system Directory "Work:System" on Sunday 23-Jun-91 DirMaster 58788 ----rwed 19-Nov-90 22:23:58 Movie 86408 ----rwed Friday 19:06:27 ZoePlay 34640 ----rwed 20-Nov-90 07:31:36 VirusX 11896 ----rwed 01-Sep-78 13:43:11 Vzoom 19580 ----rwed 12-Apr-91 20:09:21 NewZAP3.0 31232 ----rwed 12-Apr-91 20:15:37 PM 14436 ----rwed 02-Sep-78 13:17:19 SysMon 7896 ----rwed 02-Sep-78 13:17:27 DVPLAYER 196476 ----rwed Monday 17:58:34 -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' . 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"