Using Python for Science: Cygwin versus Native

gb at cs.unc.edu gb at cs.unc.edu
Sat Sep 22 13:06:05 EDT 2001


I'm trying to switch from Matlab to Python + Numeric for my research
work. The number of choices required is bewildering.

On the Windows platform I can choose between two versions of Python,
native win32 and cygwin. They are both fine for straight Python
programming but when it comes to extensions they both appear to have
weaknesses. 

For example, using the Cygwin package I have successfully built PyGist
which runs fine with either the X-Win32 server or with XFree86. PyGist's
plotting capability is really nice. I think I'll like it as a
substitute for the VERY nice plotting capabilities of Matlab.

Unfortunately using the Cygwin package appears to prohibit access to
Windows DLL's such as the Intel Performance Libraries for signal
processing and image processing. 

Question 1: Is there a way to access Windows DLL's and/or .obj files
from the Cygwin hosted Python?

On the other hand, the native win32 hosted python provides really nice
access to the underlying system and to dll's. It also has a number of
nice GUI packages available for it.

Unfortunately porting the X11-based PyGist will be a load of work and
I don't see an Xlib implementation for use outside of Cygwin.

Question 2: Is there an Xlib library for Native Win32? I'd be happy to
use the mingwin version of gcc. Then perhaps I could port PyGist to
run in the native Python implementation.

Thanks for any pointers.
gb



More information about the Python-list mailing list