There is "abuild" to build packages, and "apk" for users to install packages. abuild is definitely still in shell (~2600 lines). I'm not sure if apk used to b

There is "abuild" to build packages, and "apk" for users to install packages. abuild is definitely still in shell (~2600 lines). I'm not sure if apk used to be in shell, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. If you have a link to the old version I'm interested. I think the main reason not to use shell for the user side is the version solver. To install packages, you have to solve dependency constraints, which is actually an NP-complete problem! Those heuristics are best coded in C. In contrast, the build side doesn't have to do anything like that, or it can just shell out to "apk" if it does.