I am now pursuing opportunities to return to paid work on the Rust compiler. Wish me luck!
Someone (Rust Foundation?) pay this man! Compilation speed is one of the few weaknesses of Rust and even though I think that in 95% of cases it's actually not that bad and people are just looking for an excuse to not use Rust, it would be great to remove that excuse. (And faster compilation is always nicer anyway!)
Yes they do. I don't think it's totally unreasonable. Slow compile time is a big productivity drain. But it's not as bad as people often make out for Rust - in large part because compilation speed has at least doubled since Rust 1.0, but its reputation is still based on the 1.0 compile times.
And some specific projects do have substantially bad compile times. When your incremental compilation time is 20 seconds where in other languages it's instant... That's notably worse.
But I don't think it should be a deal breaker. C++ has dealt with similarly bad compile times for decades and people don't like it but it's never been enough for most of them to switch to another language.
10 Comments
FizzyOrange@programming.dev · 13 pts · 22d
Someone (Rust Foundation?) pay this man! Compilation speed is one of the few weaknesses of Rust and even though I think that in 95% of cases it's actually not that bad and people are just looking for an excuse to not use Rust, it would be great to remove that excuse. (And faster compilation is always nicer anyway!)
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 22d
Are you being for real that people disparaged an entire language due to compile time? XD
vanillama@programming.dev · 6 pts · 22d
It's a very common criticism
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 22d
Oh sure, I just can't fathom caring. I mean, it would have to be substantially bad.
FizzyOrange@programming.dev · 3 pts · 21d
Yes they do. I don't think it's totally unreasonable. Slow compile time is a big productivity drain. But it's not as bad as people often make out for Rust - in large part because compilation speed has at least doubled since Rust 1.0, but its reputation is still based on the 1.0 compile times.
And some specific projects do have substantially bad compile times. When your incremental compilation time is 20 seconds where in other languages it's instant... That's notably worse.
But I don't think it should be a deal breaker. C++ has dealt with similarly bad compile times for decades and people don't like it but it's never been enough for most of them to switch to another language.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 21d
I care far more about my experience writing in a particular language.
FizzyOrange@programming.dev · 1 pts · 21d
Me too, but obviously there is a point at which I would say "this language isn't so great that I'm willing to tolerate these compile times".
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 22d
July is almost over.
magikmw@piefed.social · 7 pts · 22d
Better get to it then!
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 22d
So, no speed up in august 😮💨