Does using large libraries inherently make slower code?

Question

I have a psychological tic which makes me reluctant to use large libraries (like GLib or Boost) in lower-level languages like C and C++. In my mind, I think:

Answer 1

As others have said, there is some overhead when adding a dynamic library. When the library is first loaded, relocations must be performed, although this should be a minor cost if the library is compiled correctly. The cost of looking up individual symbols is also increased since the number of libraries that need to be searched is increased.

The cost in memory of adding another dynamic library depends largely on how much of it you actually use. A page of code will not be loaded from disk until something on it is executed. However, other data such as headers, symbol tables, and hash tables built into the library file will be loaded, and these are generally proportional to the size of the library.

There is a great document by Ulrich Drepper, the lead contributor to glibc, that describes the process and the overhead of dynamic libraries.