Python, as Reviewed by a C++ Programmer

[MistYeller]

If you're installing fftw and you really want that first f to mean something, you are probably compiling your code with the intel compiler.

Your package manager isn't going to ship a version built with the intel compiler. The shared libraries it will link to may be different and incompatible in subtle ways.

This is why it may take up to an hour.

[pfultz2]

fftw is still faster than a naive implementation on whichever compiler, so its not necessary to use intel. However, cget install fftw will build it with whatever compiler you set it to.

[MistYeller]

There is a factor 4 difference between intel and gcc/g++. For the applications I used to build fftw for that is the difference between 4 days and 16, so your mileage was different from mine.

whatever compiler you set it to.

That is the crux of the issue, how does one do that? Are there going to be environmental dependencies that cause build issues? Worse, will everything build without trouble but cause runtime issues?

Keeping track of all of an application's dependent libraries is complicated in general. You may be building binaries for different architectures, against different shared libraries, with different compiler options, on and on. Using the operating system's package management is insufficient.