2009/9/1 David Goehrig <d...@nexttolast.com>: >> What if this was fixed with Alien::SDL as it is doing for windows now? Kmx >> is also working on strawberry compatible makefiles. This way we can compile >> for most platforms from scratch. > > The problem is as Andreas originally pointed out that there are a > metric ton of SDL_* dlls out there, not all of which are easily found > in a readily accessible form for Windows. There are other issues with > Perl on Windows, regarding thread support, conflicts between Perl > threads, Windows threads, and SDL threads, but these issues are more > black magic stuff that really should only interest those of us hacking > the guts of the system. > > Alien::SDL doesn't necessarily solve your problem on this front as > what a Windows user / casual developer actually needs is a > click-wrapped installer that provides all of the necessary SDL_* dlls > and does not assume that they have a compiler in place.
The assumption that a Windows Perl developers will have a compiler in place is entirely reasonable. Of the two major Perl distributions, Strawberry ships with MinGW out of the box, and ActivePerl has a simple "ppm MinGW" command to install it. In a future release, the MinGW installation will be invisible and silent under certain conditions, so that ActivePerl will have a compiler as and when it is needed. Alien:: is also named the way it is because it's designed to find external ways to install things, even if they are potentially strange and unusual. What if Alien:: itself downloaded and silently /s installed the MSI package? Adam K
