Create an option for a developer mode

[ocaisa]

It would be nice to support a developer mode, which would allow developers to use EasyBuild as part of their own build processes. One way to do this would be make the option (--developer)

• Take a copy of the current directory as unpacked sources
• Jump straight to the build step
• Install software and module to a temporary location

[branfosj]

A counter suggestion would be a --start (equivalent to --stop). I'm not sure I can think of why we'd only let this jump to the build step and not have an option to start at the configure or test steps instead.

[ocaisa]

Sorry, I misspoke, I mean jump to right after the extraction step

[ocaisa]

I'm not sure about --start as obviously the build step has a good chance of affecting the contents of the working directory, and you may not want that. At least if you make a copy, you aren't taking any risks and what you do is still reproducible (to an extent).

[Crivella]

So I've opened a draft PR for a possible implementation of the feature and some points that should be discussed in term of design, eg how easy to use do we want the feature to be, vs how versatile