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


And I prefer C/C++ and Python due to that.
Eg. JS devs need to version pin in NPM to not expose users to compromised packages. That means that, from now on, they need to be active at least every week and update the pinning to not expose users to vulnerable packages. Meanwhile, the users need to be on-edge about the dev actually being active, and, still, for every vulnerability and compromised package, need to scan their whole system for files relating to that package. And of course, that means a very long fix path of Vuln discovered -> Vuln fixed -> Dev knows that one of the dozen packages they use needs updating -> Dev updates -> Package managers updates -> User updates.
It’s a horrible experience for sysadmins. I’m actively switching to alternatives and rewriting smaller things in C++, because everything I’ve written in the latter has never broken in years, without recompilation, because the ABI stayed the same for all libraries, while the libraries get carefully curated by a dedicated team. And as soon as a vulnerability/backdoor is found and fixed? sudo pacman -Syu. nothing more, nothing less. Fix path: Vuln discovered -> Vuln fixed -> Package managers updates -> User updates.
Looking at more than just binary files in repos: I’m also actively rewriting PKGBUILDs to use the native python packages instead of building a venv, because that just works better in my experience. I’ve never had issues with incompatibility between python-* packages, simply because they are build for each other. And I mean, it took 30 minutes to build a component that converts a requirements.txt, which requires you to trust the dev (to be active) and npm (which you can’t trust), to a collection of pacman packages. Universally applicable to all requirements.txt and uncomplicated. So yeah, idiots can continues using pip, I laugh with a list of packages neatly curated by a dedicated team.