Compiling "static" applications with SWT/GTK

Mon Dec 1 09:33:00 GMT 2003

>>You make it look as if Steve is speaking Klingon! ;-)
>>>>Doesn't what he says make sense? AFAICT, libgcj.so is not
>>present even on most Linux users' system unless they are
>>running a newish distro, so either the developer has to
>>tell them to get this or bundle it with his application.
>>(Even if it were, unless the API is sort of frozen, the
>>issue will continue to persist.)
>>>>Both the scenarios are awkward, if not ugly, from a
>>usability POV.
>>What is the difference between:
>(1) installation script installs a statically linked application; vs
>(2) installation script installs a dynamically linked application
>plus a shared library in an application-specific directory.
>>I have a hard time seeing the usability difference.

Download size for one - a statically linked in executable
is unlikely to be as big as the whole libgcj.so, especially
as more and more APIs keep getting implemented in
libgcj. (On the other hand, the interdependencies in
the core Java classes almost ensure that quite a bit
gets linked in for even the most trivial applications!)
Ranjit.
_________________________________________________________________
The Great MSN Sale. Get shopping discounts. http://www.msn.co.in/Shopping 
Win exciting prizes!