> The same applies to the GNOME/GTK stack, where Flatpak is the way to go > for active development. libgtk-3-dev is really only for building Debian > packages from their point of view, too.
Perhaps, but what matters is not upstream's point of view but Debian user's point of view. My perception is that when C/C++ users on debian want a library to compile stuff against their first port of call is "apt-get install libwhatever-dev". Building C/C++ libraries from upstream sources is considered a last resort. Whereas for rust users, noone seems to build or distribute binary libraries and the done thing is to use cargo which automatically downloads and builds the libraries your project needs. You have to actively go out of your way to make cargo use rust libraries from Debian rather than those from crates.io Upstream gnome developers may use flatpak, but I think upstream gnome developers are a small subset of the people building stuff against gtk.
