APM: win32 perl stuff

[Tom Roche]

OK, just a warning, followed by a core dump:

These days you can do just about as much perl-wise on windows as on
anything else. That being said, your life will be easier on something
unixy, since that's what most folks run, and that's what a lot of code
expects to be run on. That said:

perlscript: I know nothing, but I'd look through

http://www.apache-asp.org/

GNU win32 perl:

My guru for this stuff is Randy Kobes @ U Winnipeg. He hosts
theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca, which has a lotta stuff at

ftp://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/pub/other/

esp for webserving. He also does ActivePerl: see

http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppmpackages/

He also takes email. (I have personally found him very helpful.)

GNU tools for win32:

There's a zillion GNU tools out there, and eventually you _will_
need/want one. There's two ways to get them: Minimalist GNU For
Windows (aka MinGW)

http://www.mingw.org/

or CygWin

http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/

The hand-waving explanation: cygwin tries to make windows look exactly
like a unix (guess which one :-), which is hard, and can be difficult
for unix novices, but it allows you to run virtually any tool. MinGW
just tries to make tools run within windows, which can be easier, but
not all tools can be made to do that. (A real explanation discusses
cygwin.dll and msvcrt.dll.)

If you can, I'd install cygwin: when you make it work you have a lot
more options, and the heightened unixosity will improve your perl
experience. If you can't cygwin (e.g. on environments like Unity), or
if you just want a few tools right away and you don't wanna <bleep>
with cygwin, consider mingw. There's a lotta mingw-built toolsets out
there; my current favorite site is

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

Just download/extract UnxUtils.zip to a directory in your path, and
you're in bidness--_if_ they've got your tool. (But IIRC they have
everything you'd need to -MCPAN.)

HTH, Tom_Roche at ncsu.edu