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> I am mostly interested by gains in security, gains in maintainability, and gains in simplicity. Dynamic libraries reduce the number of parts that need to be m

> I am mostly interested by gains in security, gains in maintainability, and gains in simplicity. Dynamic libraries reduce the number of parts that need to be managed, reducing overall complexity. I'd argue they do no such thing, the complexity is still there, only now your users can upgrade libraries and potentially break your app in ways you never expected. Lets take openssl as an example, i've seen upgrades of that break applications easily. Your app should take any dependency change as a new version or patch upgrade. And if you're releasing a new version of the application, what gain did a library provide? About none. I've seen it from both static and dynamic sides, I vastly prefer static binaries cons to the cons I've seen from dynamic libraries.

webmaven 8y ago
How would this impact the sort of incremental app updates that Chrome (for example) does using Omaha? eg. would dynamic linking result in smaller or simpler deltas compared to static linking?
- mitchty 8y ago
  How would static libssl affect say a binary diff versus dynamic? Should be in the noise floor for decent binary diff algorithms. I seem to recall chrome uses that to essentially patch things in place. I'd have to look but I highly doubt for say elf binaries that a binary diff patch would be more than dynamic. Ignoring updating the static library portion itself that is.
  - webmaven 8y ago
    > Ignoring updating the static library portion itself that is. Don't ignore that, it's exactly the context I was thinking of (and under discussion).
    - mitchty 8y ago
      Well its no different amount of difference you'd have for libssl then obviously. With a binary diff algorithm if libssl.a doesn't change then its just your changes. If you update just libssl, then its the diff of those bits. If both its both, I can't speak to how much that is as I've never done it. Test it and look at the sizes of the diffs. You'd be updating ssl somewhere, be it package manager or not.

webmaven 8y ago

How would this impact the sort of incremental app updates that Chrome (for example) does using Omaha? eg. would dynamic linking result in smaller or simpler deltas compared to static linking?

mitchty 8y ago
How would static libssl affect say a binary diff versus dynamic? Should be in the noise floor for decent binary diff algorithms. I seem to recall chrome uses that to essentially patch things in place. I'd have to look but I highly doubt for say elf binaries that a binary diff patch would be more than dynamic. Ignoring updating the static library portion itself that is.
- webmaven 8y ago
  > Ignoring updating the static library portion itself that is. Don't ignore that, it's exactly the context I was thinking of (and under discussion).
  - mitchty 8y ago
    Well its no different amount of difference you'd have for libssl then obviously. With a binary diff algorithm if libssl.a doesn't change then its just your changes. If you update just libssl, then its the diff of those bits. If both its both, I can't speak to how much that is as I've never done it. Test it and look at the sizes of the diffs. You'd be updating ssl somewhere, be it package manager or not.