Efficient python 2-d arrays?

[Jake Biesinger]

> Since you can't depend on your users installing the dependencies, is
> it vital that your users run from source? You could bundle up your
> application along with numpy and other dependencies using py2Exe or
> similar. This also means you wouldn't have to require users to have
> the right (or any) version of Python installed.

It's a good suggestion, though I am far from familiar with the process.

I've just finished implementing another alternative-- I'm doing a merge sort, where the array chunks are zipped together and then sorted using python's builtin sort then unzipped back to their original arrays. This seems fast enough and the reduced memory requirement for 2 arrays vs 1 list-of-tuples is substantial (1.5 GB vs 4GB).

Thanks for the great suggestions!