I understand there are workarounds, but they are just that. I mean, for example, I'm working away but hit a bug in a dependency. Now i have to fork, submodule, etc.

I'm not expecting frictionless per se. But it just feels like there's more overhead than there needs to be.

Also, it's possible (in rare cases) the vendor folder is not .gitignore'd. Now what? Submodules is out.

Again, given the nature of most modern dev (i.e., dependencies) vit feels underprepared.

Re: "...but by switching away from the original you lose tooling support for telling you when you need to make that update..."

Yes. But doesn't this actually support the idea (mentioned above) not to treat your dependencies like black boxes? That is, no pain no gain? Yeah, perhaps some sort of simple notification your fork needs an update. Just the same, ALL code should, in theory, be treated as your own. You wouldn't blindly merge/commit a colleague's work, so why shouldn't your dependencies be semi thoroughly reviewed as well?

Are we too busy to do the right thing(s)?