Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

This paper examines different strategies for linking separately-compiled software modules together at load time. Two of the strategies, load-time code generation and load-time compilation have only recently become practical on account of faster processors. It is likely that one of these new techniques will displace the currently popular linking-loader approach, as it promises the profound additional benefit of cross-platform portability. As general-purpose operating systems move forward to embrace dynamic linking and compound-document architectures, the technologies they choose for linking components will play a pivotal role for their long-term commercial success.