From: Conrad Schneiker <schneik@...>
Date: 2001-02-01T05:09:46+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10186] Re: system command on Windows(Arrgghhh!)

/\ndy wrote:

# On 28 Jan 2001 23:08:10 -0800, Phil Tomson <ptkwt@user2.teleport.com> 
wrote:
# > In article <9504t2$4lp$1@b5nntp2.channeli.net>,
# > 酵費七\(Park, Hee-Sob\) <phasis@channeli.net> wrote:
# > >
# > >"Phil Tomson" <ptkwt@user2.teleport.com> wrote in message
# > 
# > Hmmm... So that's what's going on.  So the self-installing Windows 
version
# > of Ruby is build on cygwin and that leads to these sorts of problems.
# > Could someone make a Ruby Binary build with Visual C++ available?
# 
# I am currently wrapping up eban's cygwin distribution for the
# Windows Installer as the cygwin version seems to have more
# features and such, but I'd be happy to wrap up one of the
# other distributions instead if they were "better".
# 
# The real problem is that there is no single "official" port of
# Ruby to Windows, there are instead several flavors, each
# with its own pros and cons.

My first suggestion for an "official" port of Ruby to Windows (which I 
think would be useful to have) would be to follow the lead of Python and 
Perl, which AFAIK, would presently consist of following the (pre .Net) 
lead of ActiveState, whatever that is. I think that that will better 
position Ruby to take advantage of future Windows developments with a 
minimum of inconvenience. 

(I suppose you could also think of this as the principle of least surprise 
for future mostly Windows-centric Ruby converts--which I think will 
eventually constitute the great majority of future Ruby on Windows users, 
which, AFAIK, has more-or-less become the case for Perl, despite its 
Unix-centric origins.)

Conrad Schneiker
(This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)