What is lead time?

Question

My company always has problems with software that doesn’t work, because the "runtime" is missing. I heard that people talk so much (you need 32-bit runtime, Microsoft runtime, etc.).

What exactly is mentioned? Dll files? Something other? Can anyone clarify?

Answer 1

Runtime is the time that your code runs (as opposed to compile time or link time).

In the context that you see, these are runtime libraries, those libraries that are needed to load an executable program.

This is dynamically linked material (DLLs or shared objects), since statically linked code cannot be absent (it is located in the executable file itself).

A classic example is to depend on the runtime of Microsoft C or .NET libraries, but not send them along with your product. This means that your executable file will be launched on any computer that already has these libraries (for example, with Visual Studio installed), but not necessarily on every computer on which you want to run your code.

I answered the question here regarding the difference between static and dynamic relationships, which I hope will add to your knowledge. Dynamic linking allows you to update specific parts of an application without recompiling or reusing it. You do this by dropping the new version of the DLL. Unfortunately, the presence of this code in a separate file means that it may be missing.

This will be one of the causes of the problem, but I suspect that it is most likely that someone did not execute their installation code very well, otherwise everything needed would be installed.

Answer 2

A runtime in this context is a runtime library - a shared library (Windows really has a DLL), most often specifically related to one that provides the basic functionality of the language. It implements functions that are thought to be "embedded" in the core language. Thus, no program compiled with a compiler that requires a runtime library will work if such a library is not installed for it — or if the program is specially statically linked (with everything that needs to be packed into an executable file).

Answer 3

To give you a practical example, here are some links to some common time series:

• Microsoft Visual C ++ 2008 Redistributable Service Pack 1 (x86) (x86 stands for 32-bit)
• Microsoft Visual C ++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (web installer)

These are system-wide installations - therefore, any software that requires a specific runtime can use it after installation.

Answer 4

They probably refer to third-party Microsoft libraries and the .NET platform.

Your company’s applications probably use some third-party libraries such as MFC, ATL, etc. in the case of an application written in .NET, for example. C #, VB.NET, if you are developing Java, there is a JRE (Java Runtime env) that must be installed to run the application.

If the required dlls / frameworks that are not installed / deployed on the client machine, you will probably get a "runtime error".

This is a deployment problem that can be resolved using the correct installation process. the installer can check if the necessary infrastructure is installed, and if it is not installed during the installation process.