From: Jim Moy <web@...>
Date: 2004-04-20T12:46:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Free VC++ Compiler

Lothar Scholz wrote:
> So compiling against the static version of "msvcrt.lib" is okay ?
> ...
> And we must also compile all extension ".so" files
> against the static lib, not really nice. So i think we still need
> prebuild windows versions.

I don't quite follow this discussion since I've never built ruby myself, 
I'm just a ruby "user" at this point.

However, my impression from reading the rubygarden wiki was that ruby 
with dependencies on only msvcrt.dll requires VC++; you may be able to 
build under MinGW but it isn't the mainstream way to develop ruby code. 
  And so you really want to have a purchased copy of VC++.  (This may be 
a mistaken conclusion, please educate me...)

If so, I was thinking that with this new tools release by Microsoft, 
some of that may be alleviated, and so with a bit of work on the build 
process we could build ruby in a way that would fit the VC++ development 
model, both free and purchased.

Jim