C programmers certainly hate dependencies. So much that the most extreme class cannot even tolerate multi-file external dependencies. That is really extreme, but given the history of dealing (or coping) with dependencies such paranoia is rather justified.<p>&gt; Why not just lay out your source normally, and then munge it with a simple script into something Windows can handle (similar to sqlite)? Because writing trivial scripts on Windows is also a pain?<p>Instead of making a big library with multiple files, they took an alternative to make a small well-defined library with a single file and small number of entry points.