Size problem, compilation performance and dll hell

[Øyvind Harboe <oyvind dot harboe at zylin dot com>]

Here is one advantage with .so/.dlls: reduced compilation time
with many .exe files.

I have a couple of SWT apps where I link each app into one
big .exe file.

I wanted to compile Eclipse SWT into a .dll to reduce
compilation times, but as fate would it, I ran into a 
bug(PR filed). 

I suppose it would also be possible to address the compilation 
performance problem by creating an object library for SWT instead
of a DLL. 

W.r.t. dll hell: I will be distributing all
my .exe and its .dlls together, and the .dlls will be placed in
the application directory: no shared files between applications or
versions, side-by-side installation of multiple versions of 
my app, no installer, no dll hell.

IMHO, Java also suffers from "DLL hell". E.g. java.util.regex 
creates a nasty dependency on JRE 1.4. (Tip: consider e.g.
Jakarta regexp).

Installing JRE 1.4 on a Windows machine is far from trivial. 
Oodles of issues, e.g. Java applets can stop working due to
version incompatibility problems. 

Come JRE 1.5, they'll need to make sure they are 
bug-by-bug compatible with java.util.regex 1.4.

For the record: I have no objections to java.util.regex, 
except that it is part of JRE 1.4

For sure I'm not up to speed on the finer points of why including
java.util.regex in JRE 1.4 was such a great idea. It does seem like
an awful lot of bother.

Øyvind