Re: [Exim] Re: Dynamically Loadable Modules

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Jason Robertson
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Re: Dynamically Loadable Modules
On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Jason Robertson wrote:

> But as for another option, dynamically loaded modules could make exim
> faster, in that it would also mean, a module would only have to load
> what it needs to run, for example if you are sending email, why load the
> code to receive email, if it will never get used.


Er, how can you send mail without Exim receiving it? OK, it doesn't
need the daemon code, but that isn't very large. It could separate out
the SMTP code for the case when you aren't passing over the message
using SMTP, but that's about all.

Given that memory is so cheap these days[*], and most machines have oodles
of it, and the Exim binary isn't really big by today's standards (my
running version on Solaris is about 0.5Mb; compare Pine 3 at 1.7Mb and
Pine 4 at over 4Mb - I dread to think what this means for Pine 5), I am
not convinced that splitting things up would actually make Exim faster.
Given that it had to load modules, it might even make it slower.

---------
I'm old enough to remember when a megabyte cost a million pounds, and
was as big as a very large refrigerator.

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.