[zaphar]

If Linux dependency management works well in theory but not in practice then it doesn't work. It works in nix because it can literally use multiple minor versions of a library when it needs to with no problem. Most distro's can't or won't do that.

You can call it malpractice but it's not going to stop so in practice you need a way to deal with it.

[palata]

Well, by calling it "malpractice", I say that it works for "true professionals". Then we could say that "it doesn't work in practice if people who don't know what they are doing cannot use it", of course.

The question then is where we want to put the bar. I feel like it is too low, and most software is too bad. And I don't want to participate in making tooling that helps lowering the bar even more.

[palata]

And by the way it does work really well for good software. Actually most Linux distros use a system package manager and have been doing it for decades.

So I think it would be more accurate to say that "it doesn't work for lower quality software". And I agree with that.