**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:32

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:32

❄️🦊 @icefox@octodon.social

Linkers are such weird pieces of software.

So intricate that they're a huge endeavor, so fundamental every developer needs one, but so obscure there's very few of them. There's more production-quality assemblers and web servers than linkers, but neither will ever work without a linker.

Such a strange corner of computer technology.

**Spencer Alves** @impiaaa@dev.glitch.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:33

**Spencer Alves** @impiaaa@dev.glitch.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:33

@icefox at least there's more than one FOSS one now!

**Erin 🕯** @er1n@social.mecanis.me · Dec 12, 2017, 01:34

**Erin 🕯** @er1n@social.mecanis.me · Dec 12, 2017, 01:34

@impiaaa @icefox what, gnu ld, gnu gold, and LLD?

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:38

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 01:38

@er1n @impiaaa yeah basically.

Microsoft link.exe deserves mention because it's apparently actually pretty good.

But even then... Intel has icc, but is there an Intel linker? Not that I'm aware.

Does Solaris have it's own linker? BSDs? Not afaik.

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:06

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:06

@icefox @er1n @impiaaa Eeeeh, yes?

Solaris has it's own linker, FreeBSD has rtld(1), which itself seems to have diverged significantly from OpenBSD's ld.so(1)

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:10

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:10

@impiaaa @er1n @icefox I mean, 4.2BSD was a thing before the GNU project released its toolchain, so of course it had to have its own runtime linker.

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · 2017-12-12T02:13:52Z

Kabuki Fox & Security Theater @kellerfuchs

@icefox @er1n @impiaaa Nevermind, I'm too tired to speak about tech tonight: you are talking about the toolchain's linker, not the dynamic (“run-time”) linker.

Dec 12, 2017, 02:13 · 0 · 3

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:14

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:14

@kellerfuchs @er1n @impiaaa they're intimately but arcanely related!

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:17

**Kabuki Fox & Security Theater** @kellerfuchs · Dec 12, 2017, 02:17

@icefox @er1n @impiaaa Yes they are, but we kinda settled on the API between the two (ELF) last millenium.

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:20

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:20

@kellerfuchs @er1n @impiaaa ELF is pretty okay, I guess.

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:22

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:22

@impiaaa @er1n @kellerfuchs eventually we'll invent something Better Enough that people start using it

But having written an ELF loader, apparently not yet.

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:27

**❄️🦊** @icefox@octodon.social · Dec 12, 2017, 02:27

@kellerfuchs @er1n @impiaaa I assume PE is is about as good, give or take a little.

Though I still love that a.out's Magic Number is the PDP-8 instructon for "jump forward the length of the header". Beautiful and terrible at the same time, sorta like Galadriel.