C has a lot of characteristics beyond simple lack of a standard automatic package manager that complicate the situation.

The more interesting comparison to me is, for example, my experience on C# projects that do and do not use NuGet. Or even the overall C# ecosystem before and after NuGet got popular. Because then you're getting closer to just comparing life with and without a package manager, without all the extra confounding variables from differing language capabilities, business domains, development cultures, etc.

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Groxx 4 days ago | parent [-]

when I was doing C# pre-nuget we had an utterly absurd amount of libraries that nobody had checked and nobody ever upgraded. so... yeah I think it applies there too, at least from my experience.

I do agree that C is an especially-bad case for additional reasons though, yeah.

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bunderbunder 3 days ago | parent [-]

Gotcha. When I was, we actively curated our dependencies and maintaining them was a regularly scheduled task that one team member in particular was in charge of making sure got done.

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Groxx 3 days ago | parent [-]

most teams I've been around have zero or one person who handles that (because they're passionate) (this is usually me) - tbh I think that's probably the majority case.

exceptions totally exist, I've seen them too. I just don't think they're enough to move the median away from "total chaotic garbage" regardless of the system

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bunderbunder 3 days ago | parent [-]

This is why I secretly hate the term software engineer. "Software tinker" would be more appropriate.

	▲	Groxx 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		ha, I like that one - it evokes the right mental image.