> It feels like every couple years we are reworking the wheel

Almost literally: https://wheelnext.dev/

> how many ways can they be written?

It's not just a matter of how they're written. For Python specifically, build orchestration is a big deal. But also, you know, there are all the architecture ideas that make uv faster than pip. Smarter (and more generous) caching; hard-linking files where possible rather than copying them; parallel downloads (I tend to write this off but it probably does help a bit, even though the downloading process is intermingled with resolution); using multiple cores for precompiling bytecode (the one real CPU-intensive task for a large pure-Python installation).

It sounds great and I’m not against Uv . It probably is the best . I’m wondering what’s wrong with the Python community that 25 years sees 10 package managers. I’m not being cynical it’s a clinical / empirical question

I don't think this is something "wrong with the Python community", any more than the proliferation of Linux distros, desktop environments etc. is something "wrong with the Linux community".

Ok well thanks for helping me get some more context on this I wasn't aware.