Quote Originally Posted by Murmandamus View Post
As a result, I would conclude that either the code is not as "severable" as it should be, or the linker is not as smart as it could be.
I think the component set included with Lazarus by default is what makes the EXE so large. In a way, it is similar to Delphi - if you create a simple console application without any GUI whatsoever, the size is very small. In any case this may serve as an advantage; for instance, some applications compiled with VC++ need the VS runtimes to be distributed and installed, while in this case you have a fully stand-alone application. The "bloat" also exists (to a lesser degree) in apps compiled with Delphi XE, so we'd better get used to it.