> In most linux contexts, there's really no need for it since linux distributions come with package managers This single sentences hints at least major two re

> In most linux contexts, there's really no need for it since linux distributions come with package managers This single sentences hints at least major two reasons for language-specific package managers: - non-Linux platforms - there's many different Linux package managers (apt, rpm, pacman, nix, portage, ...) A language-specific package manager means developers (i.e. the ones writing the packages) only have do to packaging work once, instead of for every platform they might want to support, including ones that they have no way to test on (and a lot of code, especially in the modern wave of languages like Rust, often works on all platforms with no particular effort from the developer). From an asymptotic perspective, using the platform package managers results in something like O(# libraries * # platforms) work and likely a lot of code not being packaged for some platforms, whereas language-specific package managers is something closer to O(# languages + # libraries) work (or maybe O(# languages * # platforms + # libraries). Looking at this decision purely in terms of developer effort, the latter seems like the better choice. (There's also things like fpm that are designed to be more like O(# platforms + # libraries) work, which is nicer than either of the above!)