This document came about because of the System Heap/INIT paranoia I've been seeing lately. It represents the total sum of the knowledge I have accumulated from writing system level software (INITs/cdevs/System Extensions/Control Panels) for 3 years, and is accurate based on my experience and the experiences of many other Macintosh programmers.
It will help you make rational decisions about resolving INIT conflicts, dispel some common myths, hopefully teach you a thing or two, and tell you what is really going on with all this System Heap stuff.
Neophytes, forgive me if I confuse you with the programmer-speak necessary to explain this topic. Programmers, forgive me if I generalize issues for the sake of clarity.
INITs, cdevs, Control Panels, System Extensions -- they are all buzz-words for basically the same critters: low-level programs developers write which load automatically when the system starts up. Programs that you toss into your System Folder. From now on, I will refer to them all as INITs, though there are some subtle differences between them (not important in this discussion though).
