From: Nat Pryce <nat.pryce@...13media.com>
Date: 2001-10-31T20:40:56+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23935] Re: New RubyGarden Poll: Windows support

I would suggest supporting *both* MSVC and MinGW.  Since they are source and
binary compatible, the only overhead would be maintaining two build
mechanisms on Windows, a GNU Makefile for MinGW and an NMAKE makefile or
workspace file for MSVC.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eli Green" <eli.green@codedogs.ca>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 11:05 AM
Subject: [ruby-talk:23932] Re: New RubyGarden Poll: Windows support


> I think you'll find that the biggest problem is that the list does not
seem to
> be very Windows-user heavy. People with copies of MSVC and the knowledge
to
> make Ruby work nice under it (currently, it does not ... it does some
bloody
> strange things, like sleep briefly after EVERY syscall ... *shudder*).
>
> Note that I'm not arguing for or against MSVC or MinGW. I'm just playing
> Devil's advocate in this instance.
>
> As you came very close to pointing out, people are not used to having to
> compile things for their Windows platforms -- they're used to binary
> installers. This is all very good and well, but this puts the onus on
module
> builders to get their modules compiled for Windows and to provide the
binary
> packages.
>
> So all of a sudden, people need copies of MSVC again. Dang! Catch-22!
>
> Binary distribution is something RubyGems should keep in mind. :)
>
> What will probably happen, given the current results of the poll, is that
> whoever actually rolls up his sleeves and does the port will use MinGW or
> MSVC based on personal preference.
>
> So really, the best thing would be for you to finish the port and clean it
up.
> :)
>
> from Furio Filoseta Tlf on 2001-10-31 at 05:26:16:
> > Is it REALLY that important to have a free option under Windows ?
> >
> > The way I see it, and at least for application development, most Win
> > developers have access to Visual Studio, so VC should be fine. Be fair,
> > is there anyone doing Ruby innerworking on Windows that doesn't have
> > Visual Studio ? Is really Ruby the ONLY Win project they work with ?
> >
> > Adopting VC would make tons of sense to the non-MS zealots, since they
> > would be able to brag about how Ruby is totally free on Linux, BSD, etc.
> > but NOT under Windows, evil MS Windows. They of course would forget to
> > mention that USING Ruby would still be free, and that it would only cost
> > you if you wanted to tamper with Ruby itself. Not that many people
> > really do that...
>
> --
> Eli Green
>