Mail Archives: cygwin/2001/07/17/22:42:58
# On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 01:12:48PM -0700, Joshua Franklin wrote:
# >Just an idea, you might just recompile the DLL with a
# >different registry entry and file name. That's the
# >only compatibility problem with having two, no?
#
# No.
And this is a general principle (for DLLs) that transcends
Cygwin entirely: it is never a good idea to have two
versions of the same DLL in any shared location on the
same computer.
If each application's installation routine puts its
DLLs in the same user-specified directory where the
rest of the application's files (notably the EXEs)
are stored, and if the application deliberately
loads them only from there, and if registry entries
are version-specific, then a carefully-designed
application can get away with having two versions
installed on the same PC, as long as they aren't
run at the same time. Otherwise, just having two
versions installed is a bad idea. *Running* two
versions of the same DLL at the same time is
*definitely* asking for trouble. This includes
Microsoft DLLs such as VBRUN and MSVCRT and so on,
even if the version number is different. (Well,
definitely if only the minor version number is
different; I'm not stone cold certain whether a
change in the major version number resolves the
problem, but I doubt it. I think for the problem
to truly be resolved the two versions would have
to not provide any of the same functions, but
now I'm getting into technical details beyond
what I really know.)
Basically, Microsoft's implementation of dynamic
libraries is inherently broken, and there's really
nothing Cygwin (or anyone else) can do about that.
(Microsoft's DLLs may not be the only broken
implentation of the dynamic linking concept, but
that's either here nor there.)
RAM prices being what they are, static linking
is arguably The Only Good Way to compile anything
you want to distribute for use on Microsoft
platforms. However, the purpose of Cygwin is
to run Unixy stuff on Windows; producing
software for general distribution is, AFAIK,
a non-goal for the project. Not that I am
intimately acquainted with the project's goals,
but that's the sense I got from the claims made
(and not made) on the website. This is unlike
DJGPP, which definitely bills itself as a
development environment for general use. Of
course, there's no particular reason you can't
use Cygwin to do something that wasn't its
stated goal, but there's even less warrantee
of fitness for purpose than the "we intend
it but promise nothing" that you get if you
use it for the intended goal.
--
Your font seems to be: proportional fixed
^
|
(Fontmeter only accurate for about 90% of fonts.)
--
Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html
Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
- Raw text -