I think that the problem of static vs dynamic linking would be much easier to solve if "dynamic linking" wouldn't mean "you can only have one version of this lib on your system".

This inevitably leads to cases when piece of software X needs lib2.1 but Y needs lib1.3 and everything breaks.

I wish programs could just describe the soecific verion they need, and if it's already on my system - great. If there's another version of that lib - install the required one alongside the one that's already there.

Why isn't this a thing?

@kuba Isn't that what Nix does, or does it still do static linking?
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@tadzik @kuba Nix embeds the exact path to the dynamic library this executable was compiled with into the executable. So, it'll never use a different minor version of that library and updating the library requires rebuilding the executable, but the library will still be shared by everyone who loads it.

Whether dynamic linking is worth it in that situation is debatable.

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