[Distutils] PEP 517: Build system API

[Robert Collins]

On 29 November 2016 at 07:23, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is the design. The build tool provides the install tool with a
> directory, or if you want to get fancy, a list of directories, that should
> be added to PYTHONPATH. The build tool builds into that path. The install
> tool makes sure Python can find it. This will make anyone who uses
> setuptools happy.
>
> So PEP 517 does not need an editable install hook to support editable
> installs. It can just expose the equivalent of setuptools'
> package_dir={'':'src'}, and include a 'build in place' hook, and the feature
> is preserved.
>
> In this way setuptools users can be happy, and only users of build systems
> that can't work this way are waiting for a more complicated design.

Thats a possible route; note that some situations don't work with
in-place builds, and I don't see any reason to hardcode in-place
builds as the thing; this is why I was trying to punt on it, because
-e is actually somewhat deep in its own right.

-Rob