[davidgerard]

Every program with plugins of any sort will eventually include a sketchy rewrite of apt-get. Not just languages - WordPress, MediaWiki ...

If you're very lucky, the packaging in question will not conflict horribly with apt or yum. So you probably won't be lucky.

[bad_user]

As if apt-get would solve the problems that we have. Good luck in installing multiple versions of the same package with apt-get.

[elwin]

Inability to install multiple versions of the same package can be a feature. It encourages the creation of stable, backwards-compatible packages.

[bad_user]

Sure, it kind of makes sense for managing the software repository of your operating system. But when doing software development, you end up with multiple projects using multiple versions of the same dependency. I mean I tried going the apt-get route back when I was working with Perl - a lot of people in the Perl community like apt-get and there are tools for easily packaging a library into a deb, but it was a pain working on or deploying multiple projects on the same machine.

[elwin]

> But when doing software development, you end up with multiple projects using multiple versions of the same dependency.

That's what I wish the language designers had avoided. It would be convenient for users if there were never any reasons to want anything but the most recent version.

I know Perl and similar languages tend to value rapid development over complete reliability, but I'd prefer not to think about version numbers or worry about updates that break things. Maybe if the package management systems had been designed with less rope, users would more rarely get hung.

[davidgerard]

Yes, there's that too.