Rust Compiler: The Future of Fast and Efficient Code Execution

🚀The Rust compiler is renowned for its helpful error messages and safety standards, but slow compile times have been a major pain point.

⏱️To ensure safety and performance guarantees, the Rust compiler performs rigorous checks on the code, which slows down compilation, especially for release builds.

🔧The Rust team has been working on improving the performance of the compiler for the past 8 years, cutting compile times by a factor of three through incremental compilation and parallelizing the back end.

🔄The latest improvement focuses on the front end of the compiler, taking advantage of rust's fearless concurrency by parallelizing it with rayon. This has resulted in significant reductions in compile times.

📆The feature is currently only available in the nightly compiler, but developers are encouraged to test it out and provide feedback to the Rust team.

Why are compile times slow in Rust?

—Rust prioritizes safety and performance guarantees, which require rigorous checks during compilation. This can significantly slow down the process, especially for release builds.

What improvements have been made to the Rust compiler?

—The Rust team has been working on improving the compiler performance for the past 8 years, focusing on incremental compilation, parallelizing the back end, and now parallelizing the front end using rayon.

How can I take advantage of the faster compile times?

—Currently, the feature is only available in the nightly compiler. By using a flag and opting in, you can parallelize the front end and see significant reductions in compile times.

Are there any drawbacks to parallelizing the front end?

—Parallelizing the front end increases memory usage, so it's important to benchmark your code to ensure optimal results. Additionally, not all codebases may see the same level of improvement.

When can we expect this improvement to hit stable Rust?

—The improvement is expected to be released in stable Rust later this year. In the meantime, testing it with the nightly compiler and providing feedback to the Rust team is highly encouraged.

00:00Rust has a problem with fast execution but slow compilation times, which has been a major pain point for developers.

01:00The Rust team has been actively working on improving compiler performance for the past 8 years, focusing on incremental compilation and parallelizing the back end.

02:00The latest improvement addresses the front end of the compiler, parallelizing it using rayon and significantly reducing compile times on some code bases.

03:00To take advantage of this improvement, developers can opt into the feature in the nightly compiler by using a flag and parallelize the front end.

03:30The feature is still in development and feedback from developers is highly encouraged before its release in stable Rust later this year.