If you have a C++ compiler that works, you should be fine. I've never had an issue installing a package that isn't, in fact, a C++ issue.
Meanwhile, Python versioning of plugins is really broken, unless you use virtual environments. Maven seems to be fairly hard to integrate with IDEs (Eclipse seems to come bundled with a separate one, not sure about IntelliJ). Most other package managers I use don't have enough packages to be as useful.
It is not broken - you ARE supposed to use virtual environments. I would say its is much saner than nodejs ecosystem where every conflict is being solved by having multiple versions of overlapping dependencies.
"If you have a C++ compiler that works, you should be fine. I've never had an issue installing a package that isn't, in fact, a C++ issue."
I've also had a compilation problem on Windows caused by Python not being installed (IIRC, the SASS package needed gyp, which uses Python). That was exceptional: I expect npm packages to install without issue, although I'm still bothered by how many dependent packages every tool seems to need.
Meanwhile, Python versioning of plugins is really broken, unless you use virtual environments. Maven seems to be fairly hard to integrate with IDEs (Eclipse seems to come bundled with a separate one, not sure about IntelliJ). Most other package managers I use don't have enough packages to be as useful.