[ale] Ruby vs C, a non-technical chat

[Michael Trausch]

Not sure I follow.

Libraries on the Microsoft platforms follow the same basic model as other systems, but the details are slightly different as the platform historically had to deal with multiple calling conventions dating back to the days of sixteen bit windows.

A DLL file has an export table, optionally an import table, and code and a few extra hooks over dynamic libs on other platforms. An EXE file has an import table, optionally an export table, and an entrypoint intended to be for the program itself.

The startup code in windows is different too. The main entry point is used for exes, unless WinMain or wWinMain are required, or in a DLL, DllMain. Not a problem if you're using GNU tools, as it handles all that crap for you.

Of course, the problems that have always plagued the system are still there. App paths, global search paths, hooks, shell hooks, and more get in the way of things as well as reduce the overall security of the system. Not terribly important to MS, it seems, since they now do things like send your wifi password to the cloud and other "security trade offs" in the name of user convenience.

Anyway, libs there work like libs here, in both the static and dynamic varieties, with a few additional rules and caveats on the windows platform.

Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 6, 2015, at 10:05 PM, DJ-Pfulio <DJPfulio at jdpfu.com> wrote:
> 
> Did MSFT finally fix "libraries" and make them part of the file system,
> not just some GUI lib?  Drives me nuts when things behave differently
> from powershell/cmd.exe than in a GUI.