From: Marc Weber <marco-oweber@...>
Date: 2013-07-27T09:01:06+09:00
Subject: ruby & windows - fastest way to get going?, what about devkit as gem?

Simple example: ruby on Windows and sqlite. How to install? After some
googling you can easily find:

gem install --platform=ruby sqlite3

which will then try to compile native code - so you need the devkit.

Looking it up you'll fail with "sqlite3.h" not found etc etc.
Yes, I can create directories and but sqlite source there - but why ?
Many people may want to use ruby on windows - so does it make sense to
think about whether this workflow of installing gems can be optimized?

Idea:
- why not package the devkit as gem, so that packages like sqlite can
  depend on it?
- why not package sqlite.dlll and sqlite3.h as gem, so that sqlite3 can
  easily use it when compiling?

Then everything would magically work: gem install sqlite3
- fetch devkit
- fetch sqlite3 (binaries and header file)
- compile sqlite3 

=> be done. No worrying about where to put files etc.

Who else would benefit from such a change? For my simple use case I
don't care - but the community might benefit from making it easier to
install whatever you want on Windows ?

Is there anybody who would join such an effort?

Marc Weber