This toy project https://github.com/pjmlp/gwc-rs takes 16 minutes to compile from scratch on a core 2 machine, with 8GB and a SSD.

The original one in Gtkmm, takes around 5 minutes in release mode, if that much.

Pro tip: use incremental compilation rather than full builds, especially if you're at an airport.

Pro tip: it only works if the crates are already compiled.

Another pro tip, switch to llvm linker.

Here is the thing with pro tips, maybe just maybe, I am an avid reader of Nicholas blog posts and know them all already.

Hmm that looks slow. Can rust support binary patching like zig or is it impossible with the current design?

Parent poster is referring to a full build, which are not really representative of a daily workflow. Incremental builds, in particular of a project where the large part of a full build is on external crates (which don't need to be recompiled) are much faster.

I can't test on an old machine, but modifying the project code and performing an incremental (standard) build, takes around 5 seconds on a modern machine.

> Parent poster is referring to a full build,

Yes

> which are not really representative of a daily workflow.

Only on Rust :). This is a "hack" that must be done to make Rust viable. In Delphi, a full compile is so fast that it's pointless to make it incremental.

The biggest issue is lack of support for binary crates in cargo, so instead of pkg-config, you need to build the whole world when starting a new project.

So imagine being on the waiting lobby of an airport, reading about a cool Rust project and then trying to check it on your laptop. With luck it is finished compiling before being called for boarding.