Contradictions/Inconsistencies between packaging tutorial and guide

[primesun]

Page 1: Packaging Python Projects
Page 2: Packaging and distributing projects

The first states

"setup.py # optional, needed to make editable pip installs work"

The second states

"The most important file is setup.py which exists at the root of your project directory."

The first mentions pyproject.toml, whereas the second doesn't mention it at all.

I know that one's a "tutorial" and the other is a "guide", and the website states that guides have more detailed information. In this case it appears there's some detail in the tutorial that isn't in the guide.

[webknjaz]

Agreed. That sounds reasonable.

[henryiii]

"needed to make editable pip installs work" is actually not true anymore since the most recent pip release. Unless you are on an old Python unsupported by the most recent pip release. :)

[webknjaz]

@henryiii do you have an issue or a PR link with the change? I don't recall seeing that.

[henryiii]

Either https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/news/#v21-1 (under features, can't really link to the header because they are auto-generated, so identical for all versions) or pypa/pip#9547.

[pradyunsg]

Note that this still doesn't cover non-setuptools build backends.

[henryiii]

Well, the comment about setup.py being required is also for the setuptools backend. But yes, it's not editable PEP 517 support.

[bhrutledge]

This seems related to #866 (specifically #866 (comment)).

[bhrutledge]

Also, rather than update https://packaging.python.org/guides/distributing-packages-using-setuptools/, could it be replaced with links to the setuptools docs? They've seen some dramatic improvements.

[bhrutledge]

This feels related to #792.