Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> I certainly agree that the ability to compile things on Windows is
> important.  I just don't think RubyGems should provide the compiler.
> 
> 
>>Making an installed  compiler one of the RubyGems dependencies seems
>>like a great way to make  ruby programming more seamless on windows.
>>Alternatively, it might be a  nice option to add to the ruby windows
>>installer.
> 
> 
> Not a bad idea if it's permissible and not too large.

The compiler alone is only capable of compiling ANSI C/C++, which means 
no windows.h or anything like that. I doubt that even the most basic 
extension would be buildable with this (except for those extensions that 
just extend the language and not interface the operating system in any 
other way). So you will need the Platform SDK, which is a) huge 
(hundreds of megabytes), and b) can only downloaded using a so-called 
Platform SDK Updater, which requires IE and an ActiveX control (unless 
I'm missing something and there _is_ an ordinary self-extracting EXE or 
ZIP file somewhere on the MS website, but I didn't find anything).

I therefore propose that MinGW is used, if a compiler should be included 
at all. The reasons should be pretty obvious:
- It's the same compiler that is used on Linux, *BSD and most of the 
other platforms that Ruby runs on, which will almost eliminate breakages 
due to compiler differences
- Quite small, compared to MS VC7 + Platform SDK
- No unclear legal situation

I really don't see any real alternative to MinGW here.

-- 
(defun f(p x)(If(Eq x nil)nil(If(p(Car x))(Cons(Car x)(f p(Cdr x)))(f p
(Cdr x)))))(defun q(x)(Q nil x))(defun Q(a x)(If(Eq x nil)a(Q(Cons(Car
x)(Q a(f(Lt(Car x))(Cdr x))))(f(Gt(Car x))(Cdr x)))))