From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2004-06-15T00:39:56+09:00
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 is required :( Yuk!

> 
> Currently, I have a problem working with pre-written libraries for
> Ruby.

There are many third-party libraries which are distributed as a
combination of Ruby and C source code.  You typically need to run
extconf.rb to generate a make file, then run make to compile and install
the code.

> 
> It seems that most of the libraries are written for POSIX OSes.  And
> don't have installers for someone using Windows.


More often than not the code is intended for some flavor of Unix.  It's
also less of an issue on most 'nix boxes since they rend to have a C
compiler sitting around.

Some of these libs have precompiled binaries for Windows (and many are
included with the Windows installer version of Ruby); otherwise, you'll
need to get a C compiler and build the code directly.  There is a free
complier available from Microsoft as part of the .Net framework or SDK.


Bear in mind that some libraries may rely on lower-level system calls,
or some Unix-focused lib, and may not work on Windows.



James