In a web project, what is the difference between a dist and build directory (traditionally)?

naming-conventions, php

Solution

In a generic sense - a `dist` dir is for `distribution`. It is prod ready and can be distributed to other users who want to try it for beta testing, production use, whatever. A `build` dir is when you have ran you pre-deployment script manually or automatically and created a resource that can now be deployed (usually not distributed) into one or multiple production servers. This could contain sometimes just a tarball which can then be un-tarred and installed on the server.

Annoying naming practices..varies from people to people and organization to organization and technology to technology

Problem

Am I correct in thinking, a `dist` directory and a `build` directory are both production directories that contain the files that need to be deployed to the web server. Which to use? A `dist` directory could have both files that are used during development (.php, etc), and files that are generated from a build script (.min.js, etc). A `build` directory, however is entirely made up of files from a build script, and no development should take place within the `build` directory. So, are these assumptions correct? Also, I realize that if you are using a framework, you'd use their conventions. I am just wondering, what these naming conventions are generally, if you were to create say a php project from scratch.

Original source