cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64685863
Lots of programming languages have their own package manager, separate from the distribution or OS package manager.
Going loosely from the TIOBE index:
- Python has Pip
- C# has NuGet
- Javascript has
npmfor Node.js- Visual Basic also uses NuGet
- R has a repository of packages that can be installed by running
install.packages("something")in R- Rust has Cargo/Crates
- Go has the
go getcommand- Swift has its own package manager
swift package- Ruby has RubyGems
- Java has Maven and Gradle (not sure if they are full package managers, or build automation tools with dependency resolution)
- PHP has Composer for managing libraries and dependencies
- C and C++ are the only exceptions I can think of, off the top of my head; libraries are managed by, and coupled to, the operating system
What would be the alternative, exactly?
Each project would have to reinvent the wheel and make packages for the 10 most popular Linux distributions (every one of them being different, DEB, RPM, Arch, etc.), Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS latest version, macOS previous version, and macOS future version.
Also you would need 10 virtual machines to test on Linux, 2 virtual machines for Windows, and 3 Apple computers. That would be so easy.