Re: Using Perl's cc

[Gavin Smith]

On 3 July 2015 at 16:05, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> There are other projects that would want to use XS modules, like
>> GraphicsMagick mentioned in the other thread. Do you know if any of
>> those work on MinGW?
>
> I don't know, and the Google hits don't sound promising.

I read about a project called "Strawberry Perl". What Wikipedia has to
say about it looks promising:

====

Through the CPAN, Perl users can download any of a vast number of
prepackaged modules. Many of these modules can be installed in any
Perl environment; however, certain modules (XS modules) require a
working C compiler and development environment to install
successfully. Most Perl distributions assume that such an environment
- which is usually provided with most Unix or Linux systems - already
exists; however, Windows does not come with a C compiler and the
required development environment, and these must be installed
separately by the user or the administrator.

However, Strawberry Perl incorporates the MinGW development
environment during installation. All the installed Perl tools are set
up to use these built-in libraries and development tools to compile XS
modules as required. This allows Strawberry Perl to use many XS
modules without modification, directly from the CPAN.

====
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Perl

Website http://strawberryperl.com/

This looks like it would make it easy for users to use any XS modules
used by future versions of Texinfo. I'm not sure exactly how it would
integrate with the MinGW package system.

It occurs to me that it would be an ironic outcome if, as you suggest,
the failure to find a satisfactory solution led Windows users to use
Texinfo 4.13 instead, considering that these XS modules would be
intended to make it more pleasant to use newer versions than Texinfo
4.13. (But if they were using Texinfo 4.13 before, then, of course, it
would make no difference.)