dynamic library cost (was RE: libtool, java woes)

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Bryce" == Bryce McKinlay <bryce@albatross.co.nz> writes:

>> I'm seeing significant overheads as a result of dynamic library
>> calls.  On a PII/300 machine, a (single-threaded) loop containing
>> only free(malloc(8)) runs more than 20% faster when it's linked
>> statically.  This is similar on an Itanium machine.  I'm not sure
>> how significant that is for typical C programs, nor how frequently
>> something like libsupc++ is called.  I believe it is currently very
>> significant for libgcj and calls to the garbage collector library
>> from libgcj.

Bryce> Why don't we link the garbage collector into libgcj?

There's no particular reason right now.  Eventually I think the GC
will be runtime configurable so that different applications can use
the same .so.  The idea then was that it would be used as a pure
shared library.

Still I don't think that is super-compelling for us.  I'd prefer to
have measurements before changing it.

Tom