[Distutils] A possible refactor/streamlining of PEP 517

[Nick Coghlan]

On 18 July 2017 at 01:25, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, build_directory does not do the same thing as sdist -> unpack -> build.
> It would be more likely to be useful if you are not going through the sdist
> step for any reason on a tree that has been built before.

Ralf's questions about describing "build_directory=None" as in-place
and "build_directory=<some_dir>" as out-of-tree also made me realise
something, which is that the real distinction is between whether it's
the frontend or the backend that is specifying the build directory.

That is, "build_directory=<some_dir>" is the frontend saying
"definitely do an out-of-tree build, and use this directory for the
generated artifacts". Whether that's a clean directory or one
containing artifacts from a previous build is thus up to to the
frontend.

By contrast, "build_directory=None" is telling the backend "Use your
default build directory, regardless of whether that's in-place or
out-of-tree", rather than specifically saying "Do an in-place build".

Cheers,
NIck.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia