What is a “Package”?
Packages have been used in software development for decades. They are a core part of modern development workflows, but to many in the virtual experience space, packages and package managers are a new concept.
A package is a bundle of code that accomplishes a specific task. Packages can be as small as a single function, or as large as an entire framework. As an analogy, think of making spaghetti. You need several ingredients to make spaghetti, such as pasta, sauce, and meatballs. Each of these ingredients can be thought of as a package.
Developing games without a package manager is like making spaghetti from scratch — you have to gather, or “re-invent” all the ingredients yourself, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Modern Development Challenges Without Packages
- Re-inventing the wheel: Without packages, developers often have to write code for common tasks that have already been solved by others. This leads to duplicated effort and wasted time.
- Maintenance headaches: When code is duplicated across multiple projects, it becomes difficult to maintain and update. If a bug is found in one project, it may exist in others as well, leading to inconsistent behavior and increased maintenance overhead.
- Collaboration challenges: In team environments, sharing code without a package manager can lead to versioning issues and conflicts. Different team members may have different versions of the same code, leading to compatibility problems.
- Lack of community contributions: Without a package ecosystem, developers miss out on the benefits of open-source contributions and shared knowledge. This can lead to slower innovation and less robust solutions.
Using packages allows developers to leverage existing code, reduce duplication, and streamline collaboration.
What is a “Package Manager”?
As the name suggests, a package manager is a tool that helps you manage packages. It handles the installation, updating, and removal of packages, as well as managing dependencies between packages.
Package managers have been widely adopted in other programming communities for years, such as npm for JavaScript, pip for Python, and Maven for Java.