Yep, the dev(s) of libA should learn good practice. But they didn't and app1 and app2 still have the problem. Static linking solves it for them more reliably than trying to get the dev of libA to "git gud". Much of the desire to statically link binaries comes from this specific scenario playing out over and over and over.

Heck for a long time upgrading glibc by a minor version was almost guaranteed to break your app and that was often intentional.

> Yep, the dev(s) of libA should learn good practice. But they didn't and app1 and app2 still have the problem.

Sure :-). I just find it sad that app1 and app2 then use the bad libA. Of course that is more productive, but I believe this is exactly the kind of philosophy that makes the software industry produce worse software every year :(.

I used to think the same. But after nearly 30 years of doing this. I no longer think that people will meet the standard you propose. You can either work around it or you can abandon mainstream software entirely and make everything you use bespoke. There are basically no other choices.

Yeah I try really hard to not use "bad" dependencies. When I really can't, well... I can't.

But still I like to make it clear that the software industry goes in that direction because of quality issues, and not because the modern ways are superior (on the contrary, quite often) :-).

Wishing that all people will be smart and always do the correct thing is setting yourself up for madness. The dependency system needs to be robust enough to endure a considerable amount of dumbfuckery. Because there will be a lot of it.

Because I have to live with "malpractice" doesn't mean I should not say it is, IMHO.

I can accept that someone needs to make a hack, but I really want them to realize (and acknowledge) that it is a hack.