[krull10]

The simplest approach is to always read the interface of packages one wants to use, and if one isn't provided look at the code / open an issue to interact with the developers about their input assumptions. One should also make tests to ensure the interface behaves in the expected manner when working with your code.

Using this approach since 2017 I've never really encountered the types of issues mentioned in Yuri's blog post. The biggest issue I've had is if some user-package makes a change that is effectively breaking but they don't flag it the associated release as breaking. But this isn't really a Julia issue so much as a user-space issue, and can happen in any language when relying on others' libraries.

[hatmatrix]

It doesn't happen so frequently in practice, which is maybe why it's not felt equally by everyone in the community. I've followed some discussions on this topic and the current solution is, as you say, to place the onus entirely on the user. There is another faction that wants to support the user through the IDE to warn them of errors they might be making, and others that want to implement formal specifications that catch the errors during specifications. It's not an easy problem to fix and therefore the "simplest approach" as you describe remains the leading solution.