My *guess* is (and more sophisticated Rubyists can chime in and tell me I'm
wrong) is that the gems that are failing on your Windows install are the
gems that have Unix-ish dependencies -- e.g., the Blather gem wants to
compile something in C and is looking for gcc or make or something you
don't have, and the gems that work are the gems that are pure Ruby.

jf


On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Jeremy M Prevost <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:

> I don't think anyone really develops, or deploys Ruby on Windows so nobody
> probably tests any Gems on Windows. Hopefully someone here is an exception
> and can help you.
>
> You could run a local headless Linux VM and SSH into it...
>
> On Oct 1, 2013, at 2:49 PM, Joshua Welker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I am attempting to write my first small Ruby app, but I am running into
> > major problems just getting off the ground developing in Windows. I
> > downloaded the most recent Ruby 2.0 package from RubyInstaller. Then I
> > installed DevKit so I could use gems. After some fiddling, I was finally
> > able to install some gems.
> >
> >
> >
> > Some.
> >
> >
> >
> > For any given gem I try to install, there’s about a 25% chance that I get
> > this byzantine error:
> >
> >
> >
> > ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
> >
> > […a whole bunch of gibberish about C headers and so forth…]
> >
> >
> >
> > In particular, I am trying to install the Blather XMPP client. I am
> tempted
> > to just give up and develop on Linux, but I am wanting to deploy this
> > script to Windows machines and figure I might run into problems if I
> don’t
> > develop in Windows. I have Googled the heck out of this issue and can’t
> > find anything that is similar to my case (the solutions on the
> > RubyInstaller Github wiki did not work). Do any of you Ruby people know
> why
> > I might be having this error so frequently in my Windows environment?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Josh Welker
> >
> > Information Technology Librarian
> >
> > James C. Kirkpatrick Library
> >
> > University of Central Missouri
> >
> > Warrensburg, MO 64093
> >
> > JCKL 2260
> >
> > 660.543.8022
>