From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-05-25T02:28:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposing: A new Ruby Windows installer

On Thu, 25 May 2006, Curt Hibbs wrote:

> Overall, this is a distressing state of affairs. If anyone here knows a
> reason why MinGW would be a bad idea, please speak up.

i can't really comment on this - but my baby steps have shown it to be ok.

> In the long term it seems like MinGW would be the way to go. But the current
> 1.8.4 version is within a week or so of a final release and needs to go out
> as is.
>
> The reason that I went back to VC++6 was that all of the extensions that I
> pick up in binary format are VC++6.
>
> As Ara pointed out, buildng Ruby itself is easy. I've never had problems
> building Ruby. Its problems building the extensions that take the most
> effort, which is why I went for binaries whenever possible.
>
> But this came from the days when everyone thought that all these compilers
> (MinGW, VC++6, VC++7, etc.) were compatible. It really looks like the only
> safe approach for the long term is to build everything from source.

btw.  the incompatibility i found was isascii()  one compiler defines it as a
macro, and the other a function.  at runtime it fails to find the symbol.
sorry i forget which is which, but it's and example of incompat.

> I think this is the right thing to do, but I need to find additional, help.
> Ryan Leavengood has been tremendously helpful over the last two months. But
> knowing my other commitments, we'd need at least one other knowlegable C and
> Ruby developer who could be realiably counted on to help.

i can lend a little assistance wrspt to compiling things - be it third party
or otherwise.

cheers.

-a
-- 
be kind whenever possible... it is always possible.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama