[Distutils] PEP: Build system abstraction for pip/conda etc

[Paul Moore]

On 10 February 2016 at 13:43, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In this case, the build system abstraction PEP should propose some
>> additional text for
>> https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/specifications/#source-distribution-format
>> defining how to publish source archives containing a pypa.json file
>> and the setup.py shim. At that point, it will effectively become the
>> spec for sdist 1.0, since that's never previously been officially
>> defined.
>>
>> The key difference from setuptools is that the setup.py shim will be a
>> standard one that flit (and other source archive creation tools) can
>> inject when building the sdist, rather than needing to be a custom
>> file stored in each project's source repository.
>
> Neat! That sounds like a sensible approach, and if the build system
> abstraction PEP adds this, then that addresses my remaining
> objections.

We should probably also check with the flit people that the proposed
approach works for them. (Are there any other alternative build
systems apart from flit that exist at present?)

Paul