[vvanders]

Yes, this is lost in most discussions when it comes to DSOs. Not only do you have the complexity of versioning and vending but also you can't optimize with LTO and other techniques(which can make a significant difference in final binary size).

If you've got 10-15+ consumers of a shared library or want to do plugins/hot-code reloading and have a solid versioning story by all means vend a DSO. If you don't however I would strongly recommend trying to keep all dependencies static and letting LTO/LTCG do its thing.

[intelVISA]

Indeed, I'm biased but often the arguments in favor of shared objs have fundamental misconceptions that betray a lack of lower-level tinkering that makes it hard to take seriously.

[saagarjha]

The same can be said for any position in this debate.