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Posted by todsacerdoti 12/29/2025

Huge Binaries(fzakaria.com)
216 points | 115 commentspage 2
a_t48 12/29/2025||
I've seen terrible, terrible binary sizes with Eigen + debug symbols, due to how Eigen lazy evaluation works (I think). Every math expression ends up as a new template instantiation.
forrestthewoods 12/29/2025|
Eigen is one of the worst libraries when it comes to both exe size and compile times. <shudder>
a_t48 12/29/2025||
In terms of compile times, boost geometry is somehow worse. You're encouraged to import boost/geometry.hpp, which includes every module, which stalls compile times by several seconds just to parse all the templates. It's not terrible if you include just the headers you need, but that's not the "default" that most people use.
forrestthewoods 12/29/2025||
boost is on my “do not ever use ever oh my god what are you doing stop it” list. It’s so bad.
a_t48 12/29/2025||
Same.
nicebyte 12/29/2025||
shameless plug: if you want to understand the content of this post better, first read the first half of my article on jumps [1] (up to syscall). goes into detail about relocations and position-independent code.

[1] https://gpfault.net/posts/asm-tut-4.html

reactordev 12/29/2025||
Oh man, that first paragraph. “Such problems don’t exist…” what a gaslighting response to a publication submittal. The least they could do is ask where this problem emerges and you can hand wavy your answer without revealing business IP.

Also, we, as an industry of software engineers, need to re-examine these hard defaults we thought could never be achieved. Such as the .text limits.

Anyway, very good read.

gerikson 12/29/2025|
The HN de-sensationalize algo for submission titles needs tweaking. Original title is simply "Huge Binaries".
acosmism 12/29/2025|
agreed. Binaries is a bit too sensational for my taste. this can be further optimized.
fuzzfactor 12/29/2025|||
"Files So Big They Might As Well Be Trinaries".
binaryturtle 12/29/2025|||
"Bins"? :)
bayindirh 12/29/2025||
01.

Why not?

DHRicoF 12/29/2025||
False