RE: C compiler for Win 95/98

["Stephan T. Lavavej" <stl at caltech dot edu>]

As has been noted, this whole thread is off topic.  But I do need to chime
in...

[Bill Lawrenson]
> a free C compiler that I can use in school.

[Andris Pavenis]
> Try:
> http://www.cygwin.com
> http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
> http://www.mingw.org

1. They really ought to be teaching modern C++ in high school; C is so
twentieth century.

2. Win 9x is also so twentieth century.

3. Somewhat more seriously, the three options that Andris Pavenis has
provided are very different.

The executables that Cygwin produces will not run by themselves; they
require a DLL.  And DLLs are evil.

Though the executables that DJGPP produces will run by themselves, they are
not true Win32 executables.  This doesn't matter too much under Win 9x,
because Win 9x is lousy, but if you use DJGPP executables on a real
operating system like Win XP, they get run in the NTVDM, a virtual machine.
Which is evil.  (I used to use DJGPP, but then I realized the error of my
ways.)

MinGW produces true Win32 executables that run by themselves.  If you ask
me, it's the only viable option for running gcc on Windows.

I have been working on packaging an "unzip and run" distribution of MinGW;
I'm currently waiting on Boost 1.31.0 to release my next distribution.
MinGW's own installation process is pretty easy, though.

Stephan T. Lavavej
http://nuwen.net