📝§ Package management and versioning

• Package managers are dependency injection mechanisms

• Implicit interface

• It is preferable to have a single version of each library

  • Libraries should not pin specific versions of dependencies

  • Libraries should communicate dependencies’ versions constraints

    • Dependencies’ version constraints require additional maintenance work

    • Packages only use a subset of other packages’ interfaces

• Interface is second-class for package managers—developers code against library’s interface, but package managers operate on versions

  • Version number communicates version of the interface and of its implementation

    • Version numbers version package interface as a whole

  • Packages could declare their dependencies’ interface instead of version constraint—a thought experiment

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