<i>If only there was something like a universal package manager, that provides a generic but powerful package-management platform.</i><p>OK, I like where you&#x27;re going...<p><i>Something where package specifications look just like expressions in a purely-functional programming language, and the package manager implicitly understands the complete dependency graph, including all inputs to all build actions.</i><p>No, you lost me.<p>Look, Nix and Guix are really great ideas, I don&#x27;t debate that, but they are <i>not</i> what people want.<p>People who design and build tools want them to be interesting, but people who use tools want them to be boring. They want them to be boring because boring things present the least resistance<p>What people want is exactly the first thing you said. They want a package manager that does the things that npm and bundler and pip+virtualenv and cargo and everything else do, but works for all languages and across all platforms, and also provides the functionality of a system package manager.