[coldtea]

>Isn't that the point of using a package manager to avoid the compiling from source and manually handling the dependency tree?

The point of using a package manager is to avoid "manually handling the dependency tree". Whether you build from source or not is orthogonal.

[sofixa]

Eh, the "package" in package manager kind of implies ready to use packages, not a bunch of code to be compiled if you have the environment for it.

[coldtea]

You'd be surprised.

It just implies code collected into a bundle. Whether it's compiled into binary or not, is open.

There are lots of environments where the package manager just brings "code to be compiled", sometimes as an optional feature, other times as the preferred or only mode. Gentoo, Arch, FreeBSD Ports are classic examples of "source first" approaches. IIRC that was the case for Python packages that needed binary (e.g. C) dependencies: they were downloaded as dependencies and compiled locally, until the introduction of "wheels" (pre-built).

either as the prefered more, or as the only mode. MacPorts