> C doesn't have a package manager; people still seem to be able to get the relevant packages when they need them through the OS's package manager.

This is fine with Linux, which has at least a few sane package management systems between the different distros. This goes out the window with OS X and Windows.

(This may just be an argument that anyone working on server-side software should be working inside a VM that matches your production environment. The Ruby community seems to have shown that people push back very hard on that.)