why

do software packages come with multiple executable binaries? I tried reading my SICP but it doesn't seem to be in there.

Are some lines of execution so specific to one obscure condition that it's almost never used and they take it out of the main process image to make it smaller.?

x86-32 vs x86-64 comes to mind

In the windows world there's also .zip, .msi, .exe installer, and so on.

>>2
That, and the options they were built with, both on the compiler, and the features.

Okay, I've wait enough for my get.
I'll have to do it by force.

JACKSON 5 GET

>>2
>>1 means after installation. The software is installed as multiple binaries.

http://ai.neocities.org/P6AI_man.html

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.speech.users/PdCf9ONAYHo

>>6
It's best to make decisions as late as possible. If somebody upgrades their CPU while keeping the same installation, it'd be nice for software to just do the right thing instead of being bound to what the hardware was before. Same thing for taking a harddrive out and having it boot in a different machine.

>>8
This is not the reason, nigger.

>>9
You are so smart, genious

>>10
While you are not.

>>8
That is the case for same-architecture CPU upgrades, except when you change your CPU from 32-bit to 64-bit your computer won't even fucking boot, so whether the software had multiple binaries to account for different architectures in the first place is a bit moot.

I wasn't even arguing against >>2. Just clarifying what exactly it was that >>1 was moaning about.

>>11
While you are doubles.