> When I'm writing desktop software, I don't have to worry about whether yaml adds a dependency that I can't afford to maintain.
Why not? Because some big, centralized player has put the time, effort, and money into making yaml part of a complete library that gives you everything you need to write desktop software. Nobody writes desktop software by importing thousands of tiny libraries from all over the Internet.
> That's going to be incompatible with writing interesting software on the web, unless we want to just hand the problem over to a handful of big players who can afford to hand-vet 10,000 dependencies.
Consolidating into a distro-management-style solution would be one option.
Why not? Because some big, centralized player has put the time, effort, and money into making yaml part of a complete library that gives you everything you need to write desktop software. Nobody writes desktop software by importing thousands of tiny libraries from all over the Internet.