I mean, you're right on all points, yet I confess I would be a lot more willing to give Slackware a try again if it would return to having a more-or-less annual

I mean, you're right on all points, yet I confess I would be a lot more willing to give Slackware a try again if it would return to having a more-or-less annual official release, like it managed from its start in 1993 up through 2013. (Mast years prior to 2000 it had more than one release a year!) There are things I (dimly) remember genuinely liking about Slackware in terms of its philosophy, but as near as I can tell the official installation method is "install the most recent ISO, then update from there," and when the most recent ISO is three and a half years old, that's not a great look. We've now gone the longest length in Slackware's history without even a point release. I wouldn't demand Patrick make a new release, but I don't think it's wildly unreasonable to expect one by now. Bringing it back to the original article, I think the same can be said of pipenv.