As you're probably well aware, 'cl' is part of VC++, and if you don't have VC++, then you don't have 'cl'.

With ActivePerl 5.8.8,if you don't have VC++ (and can't get hold of VC++ 6.0), then the best milage is obtained by installing the freely available MinGW compiler, then installing ExtUtils::FakeConfig and setting the perl5opt environment variable to -MConfig_m. (In fact, it can be argued that this gives you even better milage than installing VC++ 6.0)

Even if you don't install ExtUtils::FakeConfig and set perl5opt, you'll still get good milage (assuming you have added the MinGW\bin to your path).

Cheers,
Rob