Comment 8 for bug 687864

Ok, to change the installation directory, it must use --prefix:

$ ./waf --prefix=$HOME/.applications

And define the environments variables:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$HOME/.applications/lib

Optionnaly:

$ export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.applications/bin
$ export PKG_CONFIG_DIR=$PKG_CONFIG_DIR:$HOME/.applications/lib/pkgconfig

It would be interesting to create a debug variant:
http://code.google.com/p/waf/wiki/Variants