The whole modality of a single package in a single configuration at a single version is broken and dead dependency-hell of yesteryear. Still, ports and packages

The whole modality of a single package in a single configuration at a single version is broken and dead dependency-hell of yesteryear. Still, ports and packages collections mechanically and unthinkingly continue this failed and broken modality of wasted effort. Packaging multiple versions and multiple configurations side-by-side similar to Habitat (hab) and Nix independent is the only way to go. This approach supersedes vendored dependencies because it allows garbage collection and sharing of identical dependencies rather than duplicating them. Furthermore, it allows real choices without an either-or and real real flexibility that single recipes that always attempt to track a rolling version can never possibly achieve. Also broken is maintaining multiple packages that package multiple versions of the same package with combinations of external, frequently changing platform packages like rubygems that are packaged manually. Multiple versions of the same package should share common recipe declarations as much possible and be managed more cleanly. Native extensions should be built automatically in CI/CD using polling or notifications rather than manual methods that too often lead to outdated, vulnerable dependencies and create too much pointless, repetitious busywork.