Comment by zbentley
> I’m increasingly convinced that the mere existence of a package manager (for programs, not source code) is a sign of a failed platform design
> Steam does not have this problem. Download game, play game.
These statements seem contradictory. Steam is a package manager. So is the Apple App Store. Sure, they have different UX than, say, apt/dnf/brew/apk/chocolatey, but they're conceptually package managers.
Given that, I'm unclear what the gripe is (though I'm totally down to rip on Snap/Flatpak; I won't rant here, but I did elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44069483). Is the issue with OS/vendor-maintained package managers? Or is the issue with package installers that invoke really complicated build systems at install time (e.g. package managers that install from source)?
This is getting into semantics. Personally I would not consider downloading a zip file from a GitHub releases page in a web browser to be using a “package manager”. But someone could try and make that argument.
None of this has formal definitions which makes it difficult to discuss.
Your rant on Snap/Flatpak was great.
The core gripe is that I want running computer programs on Linux to be easy and reliable. It is not. MacOS and Windows are far more reliable, and they don’t require (imho) package managers to do it.