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Comment by ww520 | Hacker News Reader

This is great. Other things needed for a great C development environment are a standardized build process plus build tools and a standardized packaging system.

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I think most people who are into c that I’ve met quite like header only libraries. Copy paste as a package manager does have its benefits.

I mostly just install a -dev package on Linux and I am done.

Not even that; OpenBSD and Hyperbola GNU don't split packages between headers and binaries. Install a package, you get both.

That's a great approach but your examples sound like: the 4–4–2 soccer formation —known for its use by Paris Saint–Germain and Clube de Remo.

The Elf interface is a standardised packaging system.

I do NOT want a package manager in my c code. I'm perfectly content with cloning a git repo from my cmake script.

And there is plenty to choose from if you don't like one or another build system.

Thanks! I agree, a better build story for C projects is desperately needed.

What most people forget is that software is meant to be used as part of the system. The rush to adopt packaging tools like npm and cargo prevent standardization of system tools. On debian, installing tools should be as simple as ‘apt install’, but now you have to check what toolchain version you install then download GB of stuff from the internet. And that for each software. Easy deps donwload for devs means maintenance nightmare for admins and users.

Because that's precisely what is needed: an easy way to ship dependency malware like npn, pip, cargo, etc.

Like it or not, having a little bit of friction prevents pulling in packages with thousands of transitive dependencies.

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