[woodruffw]

At this point, there are 10 competing tools but no longer so many competing standards: the standards for Python packaging from 2015 onwards are PEP 517 (build system standardization), PEP 518 (using pyproject.toml to configure the build system), and PEP 621 (storing project metadata, previously standardized, in pyproject.toml). These standards build on top of each other, meaning that they don't offer conflicting advice.

The TL;DR for Python packaging in 2022 is that, unless you're building CPython extensions, you can do everything through pyproject.toml with PyPA-maintained tooling.

[0x008]

The problem is, as long as old python versions continue to exist, the competing standards also will continue to exist. From a user experience stand point it is horrible. Depending on the python, pip, or Setup tools version on a system the Install command might do something drastically different in each case. Often it’s not even clear what’s happening under the hood.