node-gyp

> If so maybe the difference is that the posix/linux crowd is more likely to have installed a compiler at this point. The long running issue with Windows was that there weren't any compilers available (AFAIK) outside of installing Visual Studio first. When Visual Studio started offering free versions, the problem persisted: it's rather hard to justify downloading and installing a +4gb program just to make an dependency or extension to work (even if it wasn't directly required for the said dep). For example, this was a huge issue with node-gyp[1], which prompted Microsoft to release standalone Build Tools[2] to alleviate the problem. I think it's the same kind of issue with Python here, right? [1] https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/629 [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=499...

I do get that. I totally understand all OSes are very different. How often those differences surface really depends on a lot of things, mostly at what level of the OS you are working in. Node modules and apps tend to stay pretty high level. But again, I still stand by my original statement that Windows specific issues crop up more than any other OS. Just take a look at the README for node-gyp: https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp -- yup in OSX you have to get Xcode and a few other OSX specific steps to arrive at gcc and make, but compare that to the Windows section ...