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I'd argue that the severity varies between languages, despite the core problem being universal. Languages with comprehensive standard libraries have an advantage over those with minimal built-in functionality, where people rely on external dependencies even for the most basic things (e.g. see Java/.NET vs JS/Node). Lightweight is not always better.

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> Languages with comprehensive standard libraries have an advantage

I don't see the advantage. Just a different axis of disadvantage. Take python for example. It has a crazy big standard library full of stuff I will never use. Some people want C++ to go in that direction too -- even though developers are fully capable of rolling their own. Similar problem with kitchen-sink libraries like Qt. "batteries included" languages lead to higher maintenance burden for the core team, and hence various costs that all users pay: dollars, slow evolution, design overhead, use of lowest common denominator non-specialised implementations, loss of core mission focus, etc.

It's a tradeoff. Those languages also have a very difficult time evolving anything in that standard library because the entire ecosystem relies on it and expects non-breaking changes. I think Rust gets sort of best of both worlds because dependencies are so easy to install it's almost as good as native, but there's a diversity of options and design choices, easy evolution and winners naturally emerge - these become as high quality as a stdlib component because they attract people/money to work on them but with more flexibility to change or be replaced

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