Would it be possible to create a solid, language independent package manager so that it's not necessary to create a new one for each language/community?
I'd love to see Pip, Bundler/Rubygems, NPM, Cabal, Maven, etc. replaced by a single tool (or maybe two: dependency management and package installation).
Different languages work different ways, it would be really difficult.imho,I would not use a package manager that is not written in the language I use.So what language should it be ? Even if someone comes up with a generic protocol, there is no way it would answer all needs.
The language doesn't matter if it's portable. One giant benefit of a single tool is in projects using multiple languages. Using multiple similar tools side by side is a pain. Even for a simple web app with JS it's already necessary to use two different package managers (client JS + server side code).
Usually people code in one language (python in this case). learning another language for package management would require extra effort. Also, setting up the package is something you do once per project and forget about it (ok, you update it but far less frequent than your real code).
To be more exact, how many times have you customised your setup.py file? edited its dependencies and so on..? Imagine doing that in a totally different system (like debian packaging).
You can even now manage your dependencies and install scripts with something like automake or a homemade solution. Not really portable but if you don't care about your code being a module part of a bigger system...
I'd love to see Pip, Bundler/Rubygems, NPM, Cabal, Maven, etc. replaced by a single tool (or maybe two: dependency management and package installation).