What is the long-term and short-term goal?

[dreamer-coding]

What is the long-term and short-term goal of the Meson Python layer?

[rgommers]

The first paragraph of the documentation states the goals/purpose of meson-python: "meson-python implement the Python build system hooks, enabling Python build front-ends such as pip and build to build and install Python packages based on a Meson build definition."

The goals in the short and long term don't differ: simply make it as good an experience as possible to use Meson for building Python packages.

[dreamer-coding]

@dnicolodi I was hoping to have the Meson-UI project generate the docs using HotDocs. I assume since meson-python seems to provide a backend for using the Meson build system in the background it might be possible to use HotDocs.

[eli-schwartz]

No. This has never come up - Hotdoc is an extremely niche documentation generator. Best to use MkDocs, Sphinx, or something else more standard for a Python project.

Oh sure you can build anything, but if it doesn't land in intro-install_plan.json nor has a location in the wheel that it can be included in, then I'd say it's not supported by (or irrelevant to) meson-python.

@rgommers,

I agree that hotdoc isn't supported by / irrelevant to meson-python.

And by the same logic, mkdocs and sphinx aren't supported by / irrelevant to meson-python...

It's the docs part that poses the issue, not the individual tool used. Python wheels don't have a standard for installing documentation. And even though Unix build systems do have a standard (docdir) most people prefer the authors to run the build system for the docs, then upload the results to a website, rather than also building the docs themselves.

[dnicolodi]

I was hoping to have the Meson-UI project generate the docs using HotDocs. I assume since meson-python seems to provide a backend for using the Meson build system in the background it might be possible to use HotDocs.

I don't understand which role meson-python has in what you are trying to build. In particular, I don't understand what the question about the short- and long-term goals of meson-python arose.

meson-python seems to provide a backend for using the Meson build system in the background

What do you mean with "in the background" in this context? As @rgommers explained, meson-python provides the glue to use a Python package build front-end such as pip or build to construct a Python wheel binary distribution from a project that uses the Meson build system to describe its build process.

[dreamer-coding]

See if I can rebase this, since meson-python acts as a bridge between Meson and PiPy does it inherit the ability to use HotDocs same way as with Meson build where you just need to get the tools for HotDocs?

[dnicolodi]

since meson-python acts as a bridge between Meson and PiPy

This is not correct.

does it inherit the ability to use HotDocs same way as with Meson build where you just need to get the tools for HotDocs?

meson-python just runs meson, takes the build artifacts, and stuffs them into a wheel. I don't know how to explain this in a different way that may make it more clear. If you want to include the built documentation into the binary distribution of a Python package, you can do that with meson-python. However, that's not what is usually done and I don't see a reason why anyone would want to do that.