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It can be done using package managers too, for example using Nix. The problem here is not related to distribution method but rather dependency hell in javascriptland.

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I would say the main issue is that Nix is super difficult and requires you to intimately know your entire dependency tree down into Linux particularities. JavaScript makes matters worse, but even packaging a nontrivial Python package pulled directly from Pypi is often difficult.

I want to like Nix, but it is far too pedantic to be practical. And this isn’t even mentioning the usability issues.

I think you only need to specify your immediate dependencies in nix?

Someone has to write the package definitions for those dependencies, and the public package repository doesn’t have broad coverage for many popular packages in many languages. This is understandable in that this is a massive effort, but that’s also the point—the effort to manage packages is huge and the extra effort compared to other tools is not a good bargain for many projects, nor is it much of consolation for project maintainers who would otherwise like to use it.

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