I'm lately of the growing opinion that some people should not be allowed to compile anything.

If you want to compile, you should know what you're doing, because, assuming you messed up somewhere, it is going to be a big pain to get support.

You refer to "installing modules requiring C" when in fact you are not installing, you are compiling, and there's a big difference. So I usually advise people who want to compile things, to learn C and know what is really going on, otherwise, look for binaries. There are people who provide binaries (PodMaster for example) for ActiveState.