lua shared library policy on Windows (was RE: Large number bytecode weirdness on different platforms)

["Jerome Vuarand" <jerome.vuarand@...>]

Chris wrote:
> Hmm, I didn't remember that you can do that.   luac -l crashes with
> the Windows binary from Lua Binaries.  My own compiled 
> version works though.

I hit the same problem with LuaBinaries. And while trying to compile
luac, I remembered the shared code policy used on Linux, that is the
incorporation of the shared library in the interpreter executable and
the dynamic linking against the executable itself, and I wondered why
this policy (enforced by standard Lua distribution makefiles) was not
applied on Windows. I think it is possible to export symbols from a exe
file on windows and to link external modules against that exe interface
(AFAIK exe and dll have the exact same format on Windows, only the
default entry point is different). Is there a reason for mingw section
in standard Lua makefile doing differently ?