[Distutils] Finishing up PEP 517

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 2:08 AM, Thomas Kluyver <thomas at kluyver.me.uk> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017, at 08:41 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> > > I think we should rename get_build_requires to
> > > get_build_wheel_requires, and add a get_build_sdist_requires. And the
> > > rule would be:
> > >
> > > get_build_sdist_requires: can assume build-system.requires are available
> > > get_build_wheel_requires: can assume build-system.requires are available
> > >
> > > build_sdist: can assume build-system.requires and
> > > get_build_sdist_requires are available
> > > prepare_wheel_metadata, build_wheel: can assume build-system.requires
> > > and get_build_wheel_requires are available
> >
> > +1 from me
>
> *Sigh*, another hook. It makes sense in context, but I can't shake the
> feeling that what was a relatively simple spec is steadily turning into
> a complex monster. I still resent that we're trying to standardise an
> interface to build sdists at the same time as one to build wheels.

Yeah. Well, except I'm not *too* bothered by the sdist part in
particular, since the spec already had to define what an sdist was.
And if you zoom out then we have get_build_{wheel,sdist}_requires
which have identical interfaces, and build_{wheel,sdist} which also
have identical interfaces, so the total complexity for this part isn't
too high at all. The messy complications come from
prepare_wheel_metadata and get_prepare_wheel_input_files, which isn't
surprising, since those are the two hooks where we're squinting into
our crystal ball to try and guess what will be useful for software
that doesn't exist yet, but will later, maybe, we hope.

Hmm, here's another plea for simplicity, but from a slightly different
direction that I just thought of: what if we said that any hooks
starting with "ext_pip_..." are reserved for pip's use, and pip can
make up whatever semantics it likes for them. And then as the parts of
pip that actually want to use prepare_wheel_metadata and/or
get_prepared_wheel_input_files come online, we use the ext_pip_*
versions of those hooks to prototype them and work out any issues. And
then once there's an actual implementation and proven value, we write
a new PEP to drop the ext_pip_ prefix and make them standard.

What do you think?

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org