implementing a library in C

so I'm running MinGW on Windows, and I want to mess around Xiph.Org's libao - a cross-platform audio output library

I'm very inexperienced, and my question is how do I actually make use of it? You can download it here http://xiph.org/downloads/ (it's small)

I see an install-sh file but I can't actually make use of that on Windows, can I?

I can put the header files, which are under include/ into C:\MinGW\Include, right? (but that doesn't even seem right because then how would I remove libraries I added later if I wanted to? it's not separated) but then where do I put the actual source files?

>>17

not that dude, but you were trying to resolve an issue using only methods and constructs that you are currently aware of. If one was not aware of libraries, they would probably try to combine source files into a single object file. But there are reasons to avoid doing this. One reason, is that it wouldn't scale well. What if you had to compiles thousands of source files into the single object file? It would take forever to make a single change. By combining object files into libraries, only a few object files need to be recompile, and then they can all be linked together using a more efficient process. There's nothing wrong with thinking about this though. It is interesting to explore different methods for solving a problem. But this problem is already solved and all you have to do is read up on what other people do.

>>20
but...but.../g/ doesn't help them either...WHO WILL HELP THEM??