And yet, automatic version updates seem to be the first thing people bring up in defense of package managers when I mention that I generally think they're a poo

And yet, automatic version updates seem to be the first thing people bring up in defense of package managers when I mention that I generally think they're a poor strategy. It's a lot like DLLs/shared libraries, actually: people marshal the same old arguments every time explaining why they are a great idea in theory, but in practice, there seems to be a whole hell of a lot of work being done to make up for the fragility you bring on board with a system like that, and I'd rather just embed the source or link it statically (depending on which context we're talking about here) so that I don't have to waste any time thinking about it.