Use pep517/518 build system for modern build isolation

- Remove pvlib/_version.py (versioneer)
- Use importlib.metadata to retrieve version from PKG-INFO
- Add importlib-metadata backport for python < 3.8
- Create pyproject.toml with setuptools build backend
- Update workflow to use pypa/build module to build sdist & wheel

Author: jules-ch

.coveragerc

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 [run]
-omit = pvlib/_version.py
+omit = pvlib/version.py

.gitattributes

@@ -1,4 +1,2 @@
-pvlib/version.py export-subst
-
 # reduce the number of merge conflicts
 docs/sphinx/source/whatsnew/* merge=union

.github/workflows/publish.yml

@@ -25,10 +25,10 @@ jobs:
     - name: Install build tools
       run: |
         python -m pip install --upgrade pip
-        python -m pip install --upgrade setuptools wheel
+        python -m pip install build
 
     - name: Build packages
-      run: python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
+      run: python -m build
 
     # only publish distribution to PyPI for tagged commits
     - name: Publish distribution to PyPI

docs/sphinx/source/whatsnew/v0.9.2.rst

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ Enhancements
 * Add :py:func:`pvlib.tracking.calc_surface_orientation` for calculating
   single-axis tracker ``surface_tilt`` and ``surface_azimuth`` from
   rotation angles. (:issue:`1471`, :pull:`1480`)
+* Add support for `PEP517 <https://peps.python.org/pep-0517/>`_ & `PEP518 <https://peps.python.org/pep-0518/>`_
+  with setuptools build backend.
 
 Bug fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~