* * * * *
                                        
 We can link modules into a program with a linker, so where's the tool to link
                            programs into a system?
                                        
I'm at work, and I'm looking at all the components that comprise “Project:
Wolowizard [1]” and how tedious it is to configure everything properly to
work. Then I look at “Project: Sippy-Cup [2]” and all the compoents and how
tedious it is to configure everything properly to work. And then I had an odd
thought.

Back when I was coding on an 8-bit computer with 16K (kilobyte) of memory, if
my program got too big (and I'm talking assembly language [3] here) I could
break it up into individual files, but I had to manage, by hand, all the
memory addresses of each file and function. For example, one file might start
assembling at address 4,096, function FOO might start at address 5,133, and
the end of that file might be at address 6,218. That meant the next file had
to start at address 6,219 (which meant making sure to tell the assembler
that) and that I had to define the address of FOO in the second file as being
5,133.

Later on, when I had a computer running a real operating system (well, it was
MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) [4], which some claim isn't an
operating system, but a non-reentrant interrupt handler with delusions of
being a real operating system but I digress) I could take individual files,
compile (or assemble) them separately and not care what addresses were what,
leaving that up to another program to link everything together into a single
program (it's called a “linker [5]”). No longer did I have to worry about
what address function FOO would start—that was taken care of by other bits of
software. I could even include bits of output produced by other programmers
(called libraries—bits of precompiled code ready to be linked into a program)
automatically.

What I'm missing now is the linker for “Project: Wolowizard” or “Project:
Sippy-Cup” as a whole. The piece of software that will take the various
programs (each of which are comprised of multiple files compiled and then
linked together into an executable) and “link” them up (in this case,
configure all the components [6]) for me automatically.

I'm wondering if it's even possible for such a tool in the general sense to
exist.

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2010/10/11.1
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2014/03/05.1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
[5] http://www.iecc.com/linker/
[6] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2013/03/29.1

Email author at sean@conman.org

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