[Help-smalltalk] Re: [bug] Cannot compile GST 3.1 on Windows

[Robert Shiplett]

Issue status update for 
http://smalltalk.gnu.org/project/issue/274
Post a follow up: 
http://smalltalk.gnu.org/project/comments/add/274

Project:      GNU Smalltalk
Version:      <none>
Component:    Build
Category:     bug reports
Priority:     normal
Assigned to:  Unassigned
Reported by:  ZuLuuuuuu
Updated by:   aule
Status:       active

It is now July 2009 and it appears that few Smalltalkers build GST on
Windows XP.
But most of corporate is still standardized on Windows.  And I am only
interested in GST to try an alternate web framework (Iliad).
If I wanted to spend my time on the command line there is more work to
be had in Ruby ...
And I left C and C++ programming behind when I last ahd to build my own
DLL for a commercial Smalltalk over a decade ago.
I also work in Rebol which is written in C.  But most Rebol developers
do not work in C.
If Io catches on, most Io developers will work in Io, not in C.

It seems an obvious point - but since most of the tools that I build
which use Tcl and or Tk build fine with either my Msys or my Cygwin,
that something is not quite right in Gst.  Having the latest msingw and
the latest Msys changes nada.  Common tools build (tcl and tk among
them) - but GST does not.

This was true a few years back - but I thought that something might
have changed.

Is there a single Windows XP SP3 user doing a build of GST without
having VC++ or Visual Studio in their path?  (any run of a Makefile on
Windows that croaks on having an emacs ENV var set has that fishy MS
smell to it ... Bill Gates never learned Smalltalk, Prolog, Lisp or
Emacs - and he's younger than me.)  And the mingw OpenGL comes with an
Imakefile which means not autoconf although I thought GST was moving to
autoconf.

I own a domain called make-config.net and started blogging as
eclectic-pencil only because of these "we neglected to mention"
join-the-club hazings which - well - build character if not tools ...

So why do so few people who want to USE Tk have to build Tcl/tk for
Windows these days?  For that matter, why does Steve Balmer not blame
users for failing to compile cmd.exe with VS before complaining about
bugs?  And those DLL's in /system32 - are they the latest build?

Thoroughly vexed...