note
Ven'Tatsu
<blockquote><i>Why would you bother? ... What is the point in trying to compile something on windows?</i></blockquote>
<p>When I first started to use ActiveState's Perl they didn't have the nice large repository of modules they do now. Monks like [crazyinsomniac] made life much easyer by providing PPM installable modules that ActiveState didn't. At some point he had to have set up compiling under Windows him self.</p>
<p>At work I don't have access to Perl on my work station and company policy prevents me from installing it my self. So I end up SFTPing files to a development *nix box to run them through short Perl scripts. Even though I'm not getting payed to write Perl scripts to do minor file parsing on Windows I still want Perl on my workstation for when I find the cause to use it for that. I know very few programmers that would not want their tools of choice on any box the sit down at or log into. It's a matter of control over the computer your working on, do you control it or does it control you. By the same token I want a compiler on the boxes I sit at. I'm less likely to get it than Perl since I'm not doing any work in C at the moment, but if I need it I want it there. It's about the ability to do what I need to do, not just now, but eventualy. He may be able to get every module he wants now through PPM, but maybe next time the module won't be in a repository. But if he learns to use CPAN now, and then learns to make a .ppm, maybe you can benifit from the time he takes to compile his own modules, as I have benifited from other monks work.</p>
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