[Mono-devel-list] Proposal: Library Loading

[Vladimir Vukicevic]

Jonathan Pryor wrote:
> The downside is it's still a multi-file approach, with the performance
> implications that implies (extra startup time, etc.).

I general, I think the worry for this is mainly due to dlls, right?  So: 
have gacutil collect the .libinfo file at the same time it installs the 
dll into the GAC, and aggregate them all into one file.  Then, you'd 
only have to load the GAC libinfo file, and one or two that are specific 
to the application.  If another implementation (i.e. P.NET, etc.) wants 
to do something different, the data would be there in the per-assembly 
.libinfo file, not requiring any special installation.

Side note: is XML really the right thing for this?  We're talking about 
a simple key,value mapping.  I realize that being able to eXtend it 
later on without breaking current consumers is important, but really.. 
wouldn't "libgtk.dll=libgtk.so.2" or even (slight *shudder*)

[default]
libgtk.dll=libgtk.so.3
[myapp]
libgtk.dll=libgtk.so.2

be sufficient, and be friendlier to startup times, if we're trying to 
shave off every millisecond?  Though I guess if it's aggregated by 
gacutil to just one file, it's not as big of an issue as instantiating 
an xml parser for each file might be.

	- Vlad