What can be done to reduce executable size?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, December 11, 2011 17:28:58 Adam Ruppe wrote:
> Jacob Carlborg Wrote:
> > As long as the runtime and standard library is statically linked the
> > executables will be bigger than the corresponding C/C++ executable.
> 
> I just want to say it's very important to me that static linking
> still just works very easily even if we start to offer dynamic linking.

Most definitely. I consider dynamic linking to be a necessary evil which should 
not be used unless you have to. I _much_ prefer having my programs completely 
self-contained. The less that they rely on in terms of external libraries the 
better. Sure, there are plenty of cases where dynamic libraries are necessary 
(e.g. plugins), and the fact that they generally reduce disk space consumption 
is useful, but it's _so_ nice to not have to worry about the exact versions of 
everything else installed on the system.

- Jonathan M Davis