Newbie Question

I'm investigating pyrex as a method of making python extensions for improved 
performance. (I'm starting with some 'bit twiddling' code that is painfully slow

I've been coding in python for a bit now and done *some* assembly language in 
the past - but never any C coding. I guess if I'm going to use Pyrex I need to 
learn C.

What's worse - I will need to learn the magic compiler chain incantations that 
I have avoided for so long. This is complicated by the fact that I am working 
on the win32 platform and need a free compiler. I've got the MinGW package with 
gcc - which is probably the *best* free compiler - although I understand there 
are issues with easily using it for pyrex/win32.

Has anyone any experience of doing this ?
Can compiled extensions be distributed for use by people without MinGW *and* 
without dependency on an extra dll as a result of using this method ?

Will my resulting binary be free of GPL restrictions ?

Can anyone suggest a good online resource for learning C ? 

Regards,


Fuzzy

(sorry about the HTML in this email - I'm sending it from a handheld).

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html