Re: Compiling "static" applications with SWT/GTK

["Steve D. Perkins" <mailinglists at steveperkins dot net>]

> I'll take that comment seriously for a moment.
   You really shouldn't.  :)

> It sounds like you are trying to deploy a single executable.  That's not
> really a good justification for shared libraries.  But it's also not the
> common case.  If you are deploying many, perhaps dozens, of gcj-compiled
> executables you surely don't want each to be many megabytes in size.
   Well, the executable size isn't THAT ridiculous if you use "strip" 
on them, and there are various on-the-fly-compression tools (like UPX) 
that you can use to make this disadvantage a non-factor (granted, they 
aren't quite as effective on Linux as on Win32 for reasons that are way 
off-topic).

   Look... if and when all major Linux distributions install libgcj by 
default in their "typical installation" modes, I'll be perfectly happy 
with that (well, "reluctantly happy" perhaps!).  It may be that this is 
already the case... I'd be interested to know, I haven't played with 
other distributions in some time.  However, my opinion is that it's 
never a good idea to force shared library dependency by default in 
situations where the shared library is not a pevasive near-universal 
standard.  Developers might not care, but the average end-user looks at 
you as if you're speaking Klingon when told that they have to install a 
new shared library.  That severely reduces acceptance of your 
applications, and I'm not even getting started on 
backwards-compatibility issues given the rapid advancement of libgcj.

> That will eventually change,
> and win32 users will likely have a libgcj.dll unless they configure with
> --disable-shared.
   Dear God I hope not!  That would be beyond silly.  It's quite 
probable that libgcj will become pervasive on major Linux distributions, 
but a "libgcj.dll" will NEVER be pervasive on the Win32 platform.  This 
would be GUARANTEEING the need for a DLL installation, creating needless 
deployment complications.  I'm really not looking forward to having to 
build by own custom GCJ from source just to get work done.


> There really, really should be a FAQ for this.
   Amen brother!  :)

Steve