Compiler‑build system interaction causing performance and packaging challenges
Problem
Developers commonly worry that compiler‑build system interactions cause long build times, limited modularity, and inefficient package management, especially when whole‑program optimization inflates intermediate results, and when language‑specific packaging hinders security updates and cross‑language reuse.
Pain points
- Build times are limited by language design, requiring leaner, better modularized software
- Whole‑program optimization dependence inflates intermediate results
- Moving packages into language‑specific silos creates security‑update and portability constraints
Questions to verify
- Do you experience slower build times due to language design?
- Do you encounter overly large intermediate results when using languages that require whole‑program optimization?
- Do you face situations where security updates or patches require recompiling the entire binary?
Evidence
quote · @匿名
My C projects are already extremely fast to build. I also don't agree we should give up modularity for whole program optimization, I do not think we should give up dynamic (edit) linking, I do not think everything needs to be entangled to achieve fast builds...The build times we see affecting C++ and Rust are because the type systems of languages is misdesigned. The supply-chain issues we have with the language-level packaging manager downloading source instead of pre-compiled binaries from curated repositories are also related to this. I think we need leaner, simpler, and better modularized software. Not whole-program optimization which is only necessary because of the monomorphized gigantic intermediate results created for ba
quote · @匿名
Fwiw on the compiler front, I used to work on the msvc tool chain. It has been doing lto (aka ltcg) for a very long time at reasonably good throughput. That tool chain also has done incremental compilation on a per function basis for about 7 years. Sharing header parsing across translation units has been possible through PCH for decades. Even without PCH, inline header functions only get codegened once in ltcg mode (not counting inline expansion).In a large multi-dll build like Windows or Office, the import/export information across modules is computed without doing codegen, so ltcg codegen can be done in parallel regardless of the module dependency graph.
quote · @匿名
Moving packages out of the operating system and effectively into language specific silos is a trade off. We find these tradeoffs useful because distributions don't always stay close enough to the bleeding edge for what we're doing and often we're using machines where we have no permission to install system packages or update them. So we derive great value from effectively having a private packaging system. On the other hand a build system that only does silos, assumes some packaging system and is monolingual has limited applicability.
Disclaimer: this card is distilled by AI from community discussions as “pain point evidence”. It is a starting point for need analysis and validation, not a “validated market need”. AI has analytical limits; please open the original discussion above to manually verify before key decisions.