Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!uflorida!haven!purdue!decwrl!hplabs!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!isg100!nusdhub!rwhite
From: rwhite@nusdhub.UUCP (Robert C. White Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: IEEE 1003.2
Message-ID: <1269@nusdhub.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 88 20:42:17 GMT
References: <14946@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: National University, San Diego
Lines: 21

in article <14946@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) says:
> For that matter, why do we need object archives in the first place?
> They are just a hack to save space (and perhaps, but not necessarily,
> time).  How about /lib/libc/*.o?

Wrong! cammel breath ;-)

The *proper* use of object libraries is to *organize* your objects into
a usefull search order.  How many times would you have to scan the contents
of /usr/lib/*.o to load one relatively complex c program (say vn).

As modules called modules that the program itself didn't use, you introduce
the probability that the directory would have to be searched multiple times.
If you tried to aleviate that the files would have to be ordered by names
that reflected dependancies instead of content.  Then you would have all the
extra system calls that would spring up to open, search, and close all those
files.

A properly linked and tabled library is much better for such things.

Rob.