[Distutils] PEP 517: Build system API

[Paul Moore]

On 28 November 2016 at 17:53, Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
>> Why not just have a single pth file, maintained by the build
>> tool, for all editable installs?
>
> shouldn't that be maintained by the install tool? i.e. pip -- the whole idea
> is that the install tool is different than the built tool, yes? and adding a
> package in editable mode is an installation job, not a build job.
>
> Also -- the idea here is that pip will know it's installed so it can
> upgrade, de-install, etc, so it really is pip's job to maintain the
> "editable_install.pth" file.

Sorry - I was confusing "build tool" vs "install tool" here. Not
intentionally, but the confusion is real. Setuptools is a build tool,
and yet (currently) handles editable installs. So IMO, part of
finalising editable install support would be thrashing out which
aspects of the process are the responsibility of the build tool, and
which the install tool. That's a non-trivial design job, so in the
interests of keeping things moving, it seems to me that "defer a
decision for now" remains the right decision here. Not to claim that
editable installs aren't important, simply to avoid having all of the
rest of the proposal stalled while we sort out the editable design.

Paul