[maxbond]

I don't really understand what you're getting at. No language should provide a package manager? All languages should use the same package manager? That seems unnecessarily constrained and coupled.

This is all so vague, and that confuses me. Language package managers are "destined to decline in quality" for unstated reasons. Language package managers are "don't work well" because there are multiple languages (and I presume you also mean multiple operating systems/distributions). That argument would seem to apply equally well to any package manager (including those maintained by OSs), so why are we singling any of them out?

(Cargo does have a build script mechanism, with a major use case being integrating with other languages at compile time. Eg, running `make`. The other package managers I'm familiar with have similar mechanisms. I would assume they all do, since it's a problem they all have.)

[bluGill]

I do not know of a solution. I'm pointing out a problem.

> Cargo does have a build script mechanism, with a major use case being integrating with other languages at compile time

I already use cmake and my own custom build environment manager. While there are warts it is setup and works well enough that I don't want to switch. But rust wants me to forget about all that and use cargo. While in theory I can use something else, they don't bother documenting those workflows (I'm not convinced they will keep them working if I do get it working)

[maxbond]

I can sympathize with that, I'm very particular about some elements of my workflow. But when you decide to go homegrown rather than turnkey, you do accept responsibility for maintenance. It also seems to me that you can call Cargo from cmake if you so desire.

I would be very surprised if changing the arguments to rustc (or the equivalent in any language) wasn't considered a breaking change, so I'm not sure how well founded your skepticism is. If it's poorly documented, that is a shame.