From: Ralph Mason <ralph.mason@...>
Date: 2001-11-01T03:27:22+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:24004] Re: New RubyGarden Poll: Windows support

Speaking from my experience, anyone that is going to be able to, and is
willing to work with ruby, or it's extensions on Windows *will* be
predominately using VC++ for their day to day work.

The other tool chains (free) work on windows, but do not really compare to
VC for the debugging and IDE etc, I keep them around to compile linux stuff,
but anything I want to work on I generally convert to VC.  This gives a big
startup overhead.

I don't think cost is an issue, window is a user pays world.  I think you
can get copies of the intro or standard version for around $50.

Ruby on windows is never free - you have to pay for 1 the machine, 2 the OS
and if you want to develop the you also pay for VC. So I it's not 'free'
anyway.

> > Is it REALLY that important to have a free option under Windows ?
>
> Yes, I would think so.  This is how Matz has chosen to distribute
> Ruby, so I can't see why the platform should enter into it at this
> level.
>
> > 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...
>
> Yes we do :-)
>
> Hmmm....  I recall now some of your earlier anti-anti-Micros**t
> rhetoric from previous threads.  I wonder if perhaps there's a more
> appropriate forum for that stuff.  It's kind of digressive when,
> except for that, you've got a community of people (with a variety of
> opinions about questions involving Windows) discussing the matter
> civilly and in good faith.
>