From: Ross Bamford <rosco@...>
Date: 2006-12-12T06:10:10+09:00
Subject: Win32 environment for ruby extension work

Hi,

I've recently been attempting to look at Win32 compatibility on the  
various C extensions I work on, but in my ignorance I'm getting a bit  
confused (Microsoft's site seems designed to promote that :( ). I could  
use a little help from someone who knows about these things.

To cut a (very) long story short, here's what I need to know:

1) I now gather that the VC 2005 I downloaded isn't going to cut it if I  
want to target the one-click installer. I can compile, but not use,  
extensions with it. I gather I need VC 6? Please tell me I'm wrong about  
this, but isn't that going to cost actual money? Is there a free download  
for it that I've missed?

2) Should I be targeting the one-click installer? It seems like it's the  
most commonly used on Windows, and for testing it's probably irrelevant,  
but I'd like to do precompiled binaries for win32 as well - should they  
target the one-click, or something else?

3) Am I going to run into similar problems with multiple runtime  
environments when using e.g. libxml-ruby, given that it's dependencies may  
be compiled with a different compiler. Should I be expecting any gotchas  
when (if) I get to that stage?

I'm sure there are great resources out there, but I have a bit of  
information overload and I'm struggling to sort the wheat from the chaff  
on this one. Any help or links to helpful resources would be very much  
appreciated.

Thanks,
-- 
Ross Bamford - rosco@roscopeco.remove.co.uk