{ fetchurl, boost, zlib, clang, ncurses, pythonPackages, lib }:
pythonPackages.buildPythonPackage rec {
    name = "vowpalwabbit-${version}";
    version = "8.3.2";

    src = fetchurl{
      url = "mirror://pypi/v/vowpalwabbit/${name}.tar.gz";
      sha256 = "0qm8rlrs2gfgamqnpx4lapxakpzgh0yh3kp1lbd7lhb0r748m3k7";
    };
    # vw tries to write some explicit things to home
    # python installed: The directory '/homeless-shelter/.cache/pip/http'
    preInstall = ''
      export HOME=$PWD
    '';

    buildInputs = with pythonPackages; [ boost.dev zlib.dev clang ncurses pytest docutils pygments ];
    propagatedBuildInputs = with pythonPackages; [ numpy scipy scikitlearn ];

    checkPhase = ''
      # check-manifest requires a git clone, not a tarball
      # check-manifest --ignore "Makefile,PACKAGE.rst,*.cc,tox.ini,tests*,examples*,src*"
      python setup.py check -mrs
    '';

    meta = with lib; {
      description = "Vowpal Wabbit is a fast machine learning library for online learning, and this is the python wrapper for the project.";
      homepage    = https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit;
      license     = licenses.bsd3;
      maintainers = with maintainers; [ teh ];
    };

}