Home Comp/Tech Culture Politics Religion and Philosophy Creative Works

OFB Community Mailing Lists

The following archives are provided as a public service to the community. Opinions archived here do not necessarily represent the opinions of Open for Business or its contributors.

[CS-FSLUG] The Advantages of Dependency Hell

Leon Brooks xtiansrc at leon.brooks.fdns.net
Mon Feb 21 22:42:54 EST 2005


On Tuesday 22 February 2005 09:33, Don Parris wrote:
> Why is there no dependency hell in Windows?

There is. Each Windows installer to date has had its own way of doing 
things, it's own way of keeping track of what it needs and what's 
installed. Programs typically install their own libraries, which is 
kind of like static linking under Unix but not as neat.

The classic "DLL hell" problem from Win9X days, somewhat but not 
completely alleviated by MS Windows 2000 and successors, is that one 
installer will write a file into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ which is a slightly 
enhanced version of a system library (say VBRUN600.DLL) which it 
requires. Then another installer will silently stomp that VBRUN600.DLL 
with its own required, slightly altered copy. Now the first program is 
broken, but maybe not obviously. Maybe it silently fails to update 
General Ledger totals for a few months until somebody notices (listen 
for the scream). Then a Windows update installs a later version on 
VBRUN600.DLL without any of the enhancements, or with one or both of 
them implemented in a different way, and both programs are broken.

> Is it because the devs include all the necessary libraries in
> their program?  Should I assume this is an inefficient coding
> practice? 

Yes.

Just tell your Linux packages what you require (glibc >= versionX, 
libSDL, whatever) and let the package manager sort it all out 
automagically.

Cheers; Leon



More information about the Christiansource mailing list

The Disaster of the Rolling Release

By Ed Hurst

I've always enjoyed exploring. Every time I've moved from one residence to another, I've always wandered around my new neighborhood, simply to see what was there. It's the same with computer technology. I love poking around operating systems. Lately, one aspect of this has gotten tiring in every Open Source operating system: the rolling release. The phrase refers to the sometimes feverish effort to add new features, long before the old ones even work properly.

Help Us Serve You

Open for Business strives to serve up the most interesting, relevant content possible; however, we can only do so with your help. Please take a few moments to fill out our online survey so that we can learn more about the interests of our readers, readers such as you.

Write for OFB

Open for Business accepts commentaries and other works on technology, current events, politics, philosophy, business and other relevant matters for publication. Commentaries should be 600-800 words in length, other works vary but should generally be kept to less than 1500 words. If you think you would like to contribute, contact OFB's editor, Timothy R. Butler.

Home About OFB RSS Feed
© 2001-2009 Universal Networks, All Rights Reserved. Some content rights may be held by Universal Networks' providers and used under license.

Powered by ServerForest and SAFARI.