FAQ terminology harmonisation

[Chris Pressey]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:16:42 -0600
Rick Pettit <rpettit@REDACTED> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 02:27:34PM -0600, Chris Pressey wrote:
> > > Well yes, unless the C/C++ application loading the shared object
> > > (which in turn requires runtime linkage) does so over and over
> > > again(i.e. loads .so, then later unloads and reloads NEW .so, and
> > > so on). In this case I don't see the difference.
> > 
> > But how often does this happen in practice?
> 
> Perhaps not often in other companies, but I have personnally written
> shared object libraries that are meant to be loaded/unloaded/reloaded
> as the implementation behind the interface evolves.  Works really
> well, too, in that C/C++ clients talk to Erlang servers via these
> shared objects, and as long as the API from C/C++ app to shared object
> stays the same all sorts of neat changes can take place both on server
> side (hot code load) and on client side (shared library swap), with NO
> DOWNTIME!

Hey, if it works, more power to you.  I'm still in a position where I'm
working on projects where a couple of minutes of downtime is acceptable,
so my experience with hot swapped code comes mostly from playing with it
- and I don't think I've ever written a .so - so I'm out of my element
here.

> [...]
> My point is that there is NOT a big difference between the two, and
> that is how Martin should approach the sales pitch with C/C++ guys who
> argue against hot-code load but are all for shared objects.

In light of your success with it - yes indeed.

-Chris