From: Mauricio Fernandez <mfp@...>
Date: 2006-05-25T00:24:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposing: A new Ruby Windows installer

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 10:13:14PM +0900, Tim Hunter wrote:
> Mauricio Fernandez wrote:
> > On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 09:39:43PM +0900, Tim Hunter wrote:
> >> What compiler do you need to build binary extensions that are compatible 
> >> with the one-click installer?
> > 
> > IIRC MSVC 6 or MinGW.
> 
> Thanks, Mauricio.
> 
> We tried building RMagick with MinGW and ran into problems (with Rails 
> apps) that smell very much like they were caused by an incompatibility 
> between MinGW and the compiler used for the 1.8.4 ruby-mswin binary. 
> Through 1.8.2, RMagick built with MinGW has always worked just fine.
> 
> So I'm wondering what to do. If I'm right and MinGW-compiled binaries 
> are incompatible with ruby-mswin 1.8.4, and MSVC6 is no longer available 
> for free, what compiler should we use to create ruby-mswin-compatible 
> compiled extensions?

If you're right that's pretty bad news :-| I thought MinGW was compatible with
the MSVC6-based ruby-mswin32 builds (I only knew of compatibility problems
with the runtime used by newer VC compilers). I'm using MinGW to
cross-compile the extension used by rcov, and was considering offering a hand
to the One Click team...

If they're actually incompatible, this would almost make ruby-mingw32
preferable as a base to build the One-Click Installer upon, since:
* mingw is readily available and will not disappear the way MSVC6 did
* it allows for cross-compilation, meaning one doesn't need a win32 box nearby
  to create win32 binaries

Is there anything that would make builds made with the VC-of-the-day better an
option than ruby-mingw32? 

I'd guess a possible transition wouldn't be too costly given the new
One-Click infrastructure. Maybe as little as pointing to
http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mingw/1.8/ruby-1.8.4-i386-mingw32.tar.gz
instead of 
http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/binaries/mswin32/ruby-1.8.4-i386-mswin32.zip
?

-- 
Mauricio Fernandez  -   http://eigenclass.org   -  singular Ruby