I'm trying to wrap my head around the terms 'statically linked' versus 'dynamically linked' compared to 'statically typed' and 'dynamically typed.' I find a lot of resources that discuss static vs dynamic typing, but I'm not clear on what linking versus typing really involves. Can someone explain the distinction?
1 Answer
These terms actually refer to different aspects. In general, 'static' means things are resolved at compile time, while 'dynamic' means they're handled at runtime. But linking and typing are unrelated concepts. Linking, especially for languages like C or C++, determines how an executable is built with libraries. Statically linked means that all necessary library code is included in the final executable. Dynamically linked means the program references shared libraries at runtime, so not all code is bundled, saving space. On the other hand, typing deals with data types in programming. Statically typed languages restrict a variable to a specific type, while dynamically typed ones allow any type to be assigned to a variable during runtime. They operate independently from each other.
That makes it a lot clearer, thanks for breaking it down!