Standardization: Environment storage and/or/xor switching mechanism?

[marcelklehr]

I perceive environment storage (i.e. where node, npm, etc. go) to be very distinct and separable from the actual switching mechanism.
From what I can tell, it is probably far easier to standardize "where node (and everything related) can be found" in the file system, rather than standardize all the switching scopes (see #4) and mechanisms to implement them.

I would thus suggest to primarily focus on standardizing the former., the idea being: the backend stays the same, while you can switch the front end (your version manager) seamlessly, and even, if that's technically possible without conflicts, have multiple interfaces to the backend, i.e. manage versions with different prorgrams at the same time.

What do you think?

[ljharb]

Agreed; this is a duplicate of #3.