GSOC Linker project

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-05-04 01:57, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> To be frank, I question the wisdom of not just using ld on Posix
> systems... but OTOH, the world *needs* better linker technology than we
> currently have, so this projects like this one is a good thing.

He can start with a version for Windows. If as much as possible of the 
code is generic and modular designed it should be easy to add support 
for new formats and platforms.

> Linkers date from several decades ago, where programs can be broken up
> into separate, self-contained source files in a simple way. Things have
> changed a lot since then.  Nowadays, we have template functions, virtual
> functions, dynamic libraries, etc., which require hacks like weak
> symbols to work properly. And we're *still* missing a sound conceptual
> framework for things like cross-module dead code elimination,
> cross-module template instantiation, duplicate code merging (like
> overlapping immutable arrays), etc.. These things _sorta_ work right
> now, but they're sorta hacked on top of basic 30-year-old linker
> technology, rather than being part of a sound, conceptual linker
> paradigm.

That would be really nice.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg