[simonask]

It's a relatively new endeavor, but it's also a requirement in 2025 if you want to be portable. The Linux ecosystem was focusing on installing dependencies system-wide for decades (that's how traditional `./configure.sh` expects things to work), and this approach is just inferior in so many ways.

The shenanigans people get into with CMake, Conan, vcpkg, and so on is a patchwork of nightmares and a huge time sink compared to superior solutions that people have gotten used to in other languages, including Rust.

[pjmlp]

Try to use cargo in a polyglot build and you will get into shenanigans as well, and I have already seen enough clever build.rs files.

[const_cast]

I don't think it's a requirement and it does actually come with it's own set of foot guns. The problem is that these design decisions impact culture, which is why JS has a culture of importing far too many third-party packages. Which comes with it's own set of risks.

I agree overall that the C or C++ way of doing things is more cumbersome, but I don't think that's enough to write off those languages as a whole.

[simonask]

Certainly not enough to write them off on its own, but it is one of many problems.