There are quite a few packages in npm that require native compilation of some part of their system during install. These usually fail horribly on windows without spending a lot of time tweaking your system in ways you probably don't want to. This is in sad contrast to how well many of the other libraries just work.
I would have thought it'd be possible to emscripten compile something like tinyC, and make a C compiler you could naturally fit into the node ecosystem to build native libraries.
This is almost certainly true, and if there were as many people trying to use node on those operating systems as there are on windows I expect you would see a similar number of complaints.
I would have thought it'd be possible to emscripten compile something like tinyC, and make a C compiler you could naturally fit into the node ecosystem to build native libraries.