Last night, I spent a few hours configuring a new OCZ Vertex 2 on my M4500, my primary workstation.  It turns out the drive was a dud and I wasted nearly 10 hours rebuilding and debugging the issue, but during this process, I had the opportunity remember how valuable Christoph Gohlke’s unofficial Python package site is.  If you’re running Windows, either 32-bit or 64-bit, this site probably has the package you want compiled for the version you want – seriously.  For example, my current Windows Python setup looks like this:

  1. Python 2.7 i386
    1. Christoph’s Base package
    2. setuptools
    3. curses
    4. ipython
    5. numpy
    6. scipy
    7. matplotlib
    8. Basemap
    9. PIL
    10. reportlab
    11. lxml
    12. pyodbc
    13. pycairo
    14. igraph
  2. Python 2.7 amd64
    1. …
    2. …
    3. No igraph

  With the exception of igraph, I have the entire set of libraries replicated across both interpreters.  Need to use a 32-bit DLL or ODBC driver?  How about writing an algorithm that loads 6GB of text into memory?  Either way, I’m set, and this wouldn’t be possible without Christoph’s site.  Is it perfect ?  Does it have everything?  No and no, of course, but is it better than dealing with a build chain and dependencies on Windows?  A thousand times yes.