Comment by sebastos

The tough truth is that there already is a cargo for C/C++: Conan2. I know, python, ick. I know, conanfile.py, ick. But despite its warts, Conan fundamentally CAN handle every part of the general problem. Nobody else can. Profiles to manage host vs. target configuration? Check. Sufficiently detailed modeling of ABI to allow pre-compiled binary caching, local and remote? Check, check, check. Offline vs. Online work modes? Check. Building any relevant project via any relevant build system, including Meson, without changes to the project itself? Check. Support for pulling build-side requirements? Check. Version ranges? Check. Lockfiles? Check. Closed-source, binary-only dependencies? Check.

Once you appreciate the vastness of the problem, you will see that having a vibrant ecosystem of different competing package managers sucks. This is a problem where ONE standard that can handle every situation is incalculably better than many different solutions which solve only slices of the problem. I don't care how terse craft's toml file is - if it can't cross compile, it's useless to me. So my project can never use your tool, which implies other projects will have the same problem, which implies you're not the one package manager / build system, which means you're part of the problem, not the solution. The Right Thing is to adopt one unilateral standard for all projects. If you're remotely interested in working on package managers, the best way to help the human race is to fix all of the outstanding things about Conan that prevent it from being the One Thing. It's the closest to being the One Thing, and yet there are still many hanging chads:

- its terribly written documentation

- its incomplete support for editable packages

- its only nascent support for "workspaces"

- its lack of NVIDIA recipes

If you really can't stand to work on Conan (I wouldn't blame you), another effort that could help is the common package specification format (CPS). Making that a thing would also be a huge improvement. In fact, if it succeeds, then you'd be free to compete with conan's "frontend" ergonomics without having to compete with the ecosystem.