Project Timberwolf - Firefox for AmigaOS4.1

[itix]

Ok, this is off topic but IMHO, supporting shared objects was one of the best new features I've seen from a developer perspective. Existing library/interface methods just don't seem to have what it takes to support shared C++ code. Without them, you end up having to static link C++ object code, making your executables huge.

They are not shared and C++ dynamic linking libraries stop working when there is new GCC version.

[itix]

So what. You're free to use shared libraries or shared objects, depending on what suits your needs the best.

Sure. But OS4 does not have shared objects. You can use shared libraries or dynamically linked objects. Nothing in those objects are shared. And there is nothing wrong with dynamic linking. Karlos was just confused about it.

[itix]

They are not shared presently in memory (in the sense that shared libraries are), but they are shared in the sense that they are not statically linked against the executable.

In other operating systems it is called dynamic linking. Wikipedia article about Windows DLL could be interesting reading to all amigans.

[itix]

Have you tried writing code that provides properly extensible C++ classes (complete with virtual functions) in an amigaos shared library?

True. You cant do that.

It is up to the compiler/linker implementation to decide how virtual function tables work, not the operating system.

And this is exactly the problem. It is compiler specific and you can not always mix C++ libraries compiled with different GCC versions.

[itix]

People going down that road when criticising support for .so files should consider that ELF is not an amiga 3.x standard either

It is not and there were massive flame wars in the Amiga community ten years ago. "ELF is a monster !!!" being the most famous quote from that era.

Likewise .so is a sensible choice, particularly for C++ since quite frankly, there is no other widely accepted, open alternative.

C++ sucks anyway ;-)