From: David Vallner <david@...>
Date: 2005-12-03T18:41:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby, MySQL on WinXP?

Tree Dweller wrote:

>I don't think the toolkit comes with "nmake" though, so you're out of
>luck w.r.t. executing a make file. 
>
I think either the Platform SDK (downloadable) does, and you need that 
to compile most anything on Windows anyway, or the .NET SDK does. 
Unfortunately both hefty downloads, and require some tweaking to get to 
work right.

The main problem with the downloadable toolkit is that it doesn't come 
with the import libraries to MSVCRT.DLL, which means most builds will 
fail to link. The .NET SDK comes with them, but:

 - the CL.EXE that comes with .NET v1.1 is a crippled version that 
doesn't do optimizations.
 - the one that comes with v2.0 is a complete compiler, but the import 
libraries link against the new MSVCRT80.DLL, which is not provided with 
the SDK download or anywhere else legally.

If doing Rails development, just abuse that you are provided a database 
layer - use SQLite3 for development, works as a charm without running 
the server, and use MySQL as the production server. Before deploying, 
use Rails Schemas to dump the development DB metadata and recreate it 
from scratch in the production environment. The production machine will 
most likely be a *nix server where the native extensions are either less 
painful to build, or Someone Else's Problem.

Oh - and Cygwin helps loads too.

David Vallner