I don't think NPM is an example of a good dependency management system. It works, but it doesn't spark joy. Some issues I've run into:

- npm install ignores package-lock.json and uses package.json. The work-around is to use npm ci. https://stackoverflow.com/a/45566871/30900

- Flakiness. An acceptable solution to npm difficulties is `rm -rf node_modules; npm i`. Admittedly, this has improved a lot in recent years.

NPM also inherits the design preferences of the JS ecosystem.

- Simple packages have deep dependency graphs.

- Functionality is spread across multiple packages, sometimes at a granularity of a function per package.

- If you want types, you roughly double the number of packages you need.