Re: OT: Language War (Re: "C" Manual)
- To: "Eric G. Miller" <egm2@jps.net>
- Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org
- Subject: Re: OT: Language War (Re: "C" Manual)
- From: Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 09:03:33 -0500
- Message-id: <[🔎] 20020101140333.GJ5414@blimpo.internal.net>
- In-reply-to: <20011231154638.4e557695.egm2@jps.net>
- References: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0112291607580.30746-100000@windmill.gghcwest.com> <Pine.LNX.4.21.0112291951431.24363-100000@benatar.snurgle.org> <20011230230636.GA25289@bmrb.wisc.edu> <15408.54927.777406.278143@ankh-morpork.cobbe.net> <3C30DCA7.BDF9A001@bigfoot.com> <20011231154638.4e557695.egm2@jps.net>
On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 03:46:38PM -0800, Eric G. Miller wrote:
>
> Well, I dare you to remove 'ld' or 'libc.so' and see how many programs
> run ;-) I think it's fair to characterize required language libraries
> as part of the "run time" system. Whether or not a program is statically
> compiled is unimportant, as the language library still performs actions
> at runtime that "your" program depends on, and which "your" program
> could not function without. Among those things, might be checking
> array accesses and raising exceptions for range errors...
I assume you mean ld.so.
The fact is that the C library is not needed in order to use C (else
libc.so would require itself in a neverending loop). You can easily
write C programs that use nothing from libc.so/libc.a. You can't write
java, perl and python that don't need their runtime.
The Linux kernel is an excellent example of a C program that is
self-contained.
Think of libraries as conveniences, not requirements.
I would also point out that java, python, php and perl runtime are
written in _C_. It's easy to characterize an interpreted language by
noting that it's runtime executable is written in a language other than
itself.
--
.----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=-----.
/ Ben Collins -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com '
`---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
Reply to: