CI/WIP: Use conda for most deps
closes #6870 
- [x] use conda.binstar.org/cpcloud channel for versions/packages not in conda defaults
- [x] possibly bring back the ccache, not totally sure what this is doing

this doesn't remove maintenance, but it sure does simplify things, since conda recipes are very easy to create

the cache is to avoid regenerating the cython files each time 

should be unaffected by using conda
 ah ok cool
 FYI should email continuum to have then setup a pandas binstar 

I am sure they would
 i tried to but i couldn't find a way to upload packages to an organization
 hmm should be a way - ok 

can do later anyhow
 ok looks trivial let me try

https://groups.google.com/a/continuum.io/forum/#!topic/conda/uYtVRGW--iU
 nice, it works like a charm
 only major issue is that there's no python 3.2 in continuum's repos and the one i built doesn't seem to work

i'll scour the interwebz
 @jreback if you sign up for binstar i can add u to the group
 hmm I thought I did will check later
 okay sounds good
 closing until i make more progress
 FYI the statsmodels guys use miniconda

look at their repo
 yeah i checked it out there's some path stuff re travis that i don't fully undersatnd yet
 alright i got at least one build passing!

https://travis-ci.org/cpcloud/pandas/builds/32118580
 @jreback what is your feeling about these older versions of pytables + numexpr + numpy?

conda doesn't let me install them together, it complains about unsatisfiable packages probably because of some of the compat issues that we came up against earlier

i haven't investigated yet but i was wondering if you think it would be too drastic to simply use whatever the latest versions of the deps are on conda (keeping older ones where we can).
 hmm we could drop support for pytables < 3.0.0 (and consequently Numexpr < 2.1)

in fact need to switch to the new API for pytables in 3.0.0
(which is really just making the function calls pep 8 nothing actually changes)

I think it would be ok to do this

want to create  an issue for that?
 what older versions do they have these (that seem 2 work)?
still want to test as much as possible of course
 could do pytables=3.0.0 + numexpr=2.2.2 + numpy=1.7.0
 ok

gr8

so u specify just pytables==3.0.0 and let it figure out the others? (or u specify all ?)
 also if u can specificy pip/setup tools versions try to have an oldest possible that works too 
 so i can specify or if i don't then it will use the latest versions of each
 @jreback would you accept a pr that has a `./fake_ci.sh` script that essentially does the conda stuff and runs tests?
 what so u mean?
 do
 i have script that essentially does all the conda install stuff but you can run it locally eg to test requirements without having to wait on travis
 creates an environemnt based on the sha1 hash of the req file so no need to recreate if you want to run it again
 a very poor man's tox
 that's useful too
 we should drop 3.2 if we do this yes? (alternatively could leave the experimental builds in place?
and use conda for the main builds, but leave the numpy_master/3.2 build )

?
