Package and asset unification

I've come from a web background, both javascript and PHP. And one of the things that I learn't with them. Is how good NPM and Composer are. I feel that the package manager could grasp such grandiosity so easily.

I wanted to propose and receive your feedback, about the idea of blending the asset packages into the package manager. Segregating it from the Assets folder, since I really think that they shouldn't be tweaked, but opened for extension (inheritance). This probably won't work as easily with non-code. But with the help of the new prefab workflow, it should be achievable.

 

"tweaking anything with how the Editor treats them afterwards" would include them being stored in the Packages folder i.e. Library/PackageCache and being submitted to the store in the package manager format (package.json)? It's not great to have assets cluttering the assets folder. It's annoying and adds "noise" to source control. If so, the Packages folder should have subfolders for sources, e.g. Unity, Asset Store, Git (folders for specific websites?), Registries (folders for specific registries?)... Of course, for that to happen effectively, we need support for dragging package assets, which is currently not possible. I guess because they're read only.

Also, is NuGet support planned? Unity keeping the packages during solution regeneration is all we need for that to happen, really. Sure, we can write a script to monitor for changes re-add the packages to the solution, but it would be nicer to not have our packages affected at all. Of course, for all things (work with me here) GameEngine.NET™, we can look at Xenko, it's written in C# and mostly distributed through NuGet after all.

 

A bit more on my solution to NuGet support: Yes, now I'm aware that this would only solve it for project developers, packages wouldn't easily be able to have NuGet dependencies.