Q:

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

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.

A:

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

