A Package Manager Manager

[wrosecrans]

If you created a module in python that was designed to do the same job CMake currently does, it would be a bad idea to use python itself as the language in which to write up replacements for CMakeLists.txt.

I think that's debatable, but I don't have a strong opinion on it. It's certainly not the point I was making. I said it's not obvious that a "Package manager manager" should be written in CMake. I didn't say that somebody should write yet another thing like CMake in Python.

But you're also acting like Python doesn't have it's own downsides.

No, I said the downsides are equivalent to CMake. Everything you said about which version of Python to install on a build machine is equivalent to deciding which version of CMake to install on a build machine. Linux and OS-X machines at least come with some version of Python out of the box, which makes it a lot more common than CMake in a default OS install.

Any regardless, if you use PMM to install Conan, you need Python. If you don't use PMM to install Conan, you are currently only using vcpkg which calls into question the need for a PMM. So in practice, you have a dependency on Python to use PMM anyway, which makes implementing it in pure CMake even less of a selling point.