3 ms·
Best way to distribute, but probably the worst way to maintain and update. A critical vulnerability in a widely used library, and everyone is screwed.
by ComodoHacker 5y ago
Best way to distribute, but probably the worst way to maintain and update. A critical vulnerability in a widely used library, and everyone is screwed.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago1) If a library is that widely used it should be part of the base OS. Widget toolkits, networking, cryptography, OS management/interface, etc. Anything else is used by such a vanishingly small number of programs it probably isn't worth considering anyway. See: https://drewdevault.com/dynlib https://drewdevault.com/dynlib. 2) We have sandboxing these days, and I contend that all applications should be sandboxed by default anyway. Mobile got this right (idea, not implementation per-se) and it is high time desktops caught up. 3) Nothing stops anyone from using a repo of portable applications and managing them with a tool, it just opens up the option to not have to do that. Updating isn't that hard. Searching for applications and connecting to a URL specified in their manifest file to download an update diff (one of many ways to do it) is a trivial task for modern computers. Yes, it's a tradeoff compared to repos and package management, but I personally think the upsides more than outweigh the relatively small downsides. Simplicity > complexity where complexity is unnecessary, and I contend that the complexity of package management schemes is unnecessary.