Re: A better ICQ client for Java (fwd)

["Adam Williams" <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> Could someone shed some light on this library situation?  I am (almost)
> completely uninitiated in the world of programming (makes me wonder what
> the hell I'm doing with linux!).  I just might be one of the consumers
> targeted by the LSB editorials on the 'freshmeat' site
> (http://news.freshmeat.net/1998/07/05/).  That is, someone that wants an
> easy to install and use distribution, just to get things up and
> running.  All of the other wonderful goodies should be there, to be
> explored when the time is right (I consider the 'goodies' to be the
> things that let a more knowledgable user take total control of the
> system) .  Along those lines, I have visited the Caldera site, and I
> like the look of the 'Base' package.  Does anyone have experience with
> this distribution?  If so, care to share?
>

I used the "first" version of Caldera,  a nice distribution but I really didn't
like their desktop much (to many Win 3.1 hold-overs and rather confusing
configuration).  Other that that Caldera is RedHat,  so if you don't need the
extra stuff that comes with Caldera go with RedHat.

> As far as the library discussions go, I have some pretty basic
> questions:
> Which libraries are being discussed here?

libc (i.e libc5) or glibc (i.e libc6)

> Why do different libraries exist?

libc5 contains some "not totally free" code and I've been told is not thread
safe.  glibc (libc6) is completely GNU and is thread safe.

> How did the different libraries evolve?

For the above reason.

> Why don't they have the same functions in them?

They do but the linking may be diffrent.  Thus a program "compiled" on one may
not run with the other but source code should "compile" cleanly on either one.

> If the same functions are present, are they called in different ways?

Yes,  but linking is a compilcating thing the average user/programmer doesn't
really have to concern oneself with.

> If so, why?

Ask Bob.

> Is it hard to just add to a library?  If someone wants a new function,

For site specific fucntions you just create a new library.  libc is the
"system" library, all programs need it to do things like open files.  More app
specific functions like calculation the derivative of a polynomial matrix are
provided in diffrent libraries.  Most systems contain alot of libraries.  X
uses it's own libraries as does Motif or WordPerfect, etc...  in addition to
libc


> does it require the construction of a whole new library?
>

Creating a library is EASY,  but you only need to do it if you are creating
programs.

> That's a lot to ask, I know, but those questions came to me as I was
> reading the editorials.  I guess the big question is:  How did
> developers convince themselves that it was a good idea to have different
> libraries?  As I said before, I know next to nothing about this stuff,
> and I'm assuming that the professionals must have had good reasons for
> doing something at one time that now seems so incredibly wasteful and
> counterproductive.  What were those reasons?  If they are truly good
> reasons, how can the LSB prevent it from happening again?

Mostly legal reasons,  and sometimes they just didn't have a means to locate or
communicate with each other.  Creating libraries is a great idea as it saves
from re-inventing the wheel with each program (how do I open a file?).  But a
library can't contain every possible function or it would be HUGE,  so you get
diffrent sets of libraries.