alt Hacker NewsI wonder if you misunderstood what mise is based on your mention of "packaging challenges". mise deals with language runtimes and dev tools—it doesn't manage dependencies or package anything.
I often hear suspicion about mise for this reason from people that haven't used it. I suppose it's not surprising. That said, I have spent over a decade in the developer productivity space as well as hundreds if not thousands of hours working on mise in the last 2 years—if there is someone that can build this I'm probably the right guy for the job.
Particularly with dev tools, it's long been the case that mise has solved this problem. Improvements are continuing to be made with things like improving supply chain security and ergonomics with python—though it's not like the python community itself has its DX figured out.
Of course I'm still fixing bugs pretty regularly and that probably won't ever change but there are hundreds of thousands of developers out there using mise (kind of a guess, but I'm pretty sure) and it's working great for them. It's in the top #100 tools in homebrew now: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/install-on-request/30d/
This definitely isn't some scrappy project—I've devoted much of my life to this problem and I think all evidence points it it being a resounding success.
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In all scripting language, packaging problems mostly stem from bootstrapping.
Nvm shims break, python path confusion, gem installed on the wrong ruby interpretters, etc.
Maybe you managed the impossible.
But in 20 years of python I've seen only one tool doing bootstrapping in the right direction, all the other ones have failed.
So I'm suspicious of something that does multiple languages.
In the case of mise, it delegates this complexity to the user. E.g: for python, you have to know the config choices, and choose the right backend like asdf, pyenv, or indygreg.
Then you better understand the consequences of that choice.
To me, that's alreay a leak of the abstraction.
I have to say, I've been reading your replies here (and your big reply in the just thread) and I'm super super impressed with your dedication to this project. I can tell just in how you write, the volume of responses in this thread, and your tone that this is a real passion project and you're deeply serious about this. I love seeing this. Thanks for your dedication!
(And now I'm off to go try mise....)