From: andy@... (Andrew Hunt)
Date: 2001-02-01T05:40:02+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10191] Re: system command on Windows(Arrgghhh!)

On 31 Jan 2001 12:03:56 -0800, Phil Tomson <ptkwt@user2.teleport.com> wrote:
> 
> Why would compiling Ruby with Visual C++ cause some features to be missing
> (like popen)?

Because the POSIX functionality is provided by the cygwin environment,
not in the Ruby code itself.  When you use plain old MSVC, you don't get
the features of the cygwin DLL which provides fork, popen, etc.  Now,
some (most?) of these are emulated in the Ruby windows code, but they are 
very different beasts...

/\ndy