Comment by ruuda
1 day ago
The Rust ecosystem is getting slower faster than the compiler is getting faster. Libraries grow to add features, they add dependencies. Individually the growth is not so bad, and justified by features or wider platform support. But they add up, and especially dependencies adding dependencies act as a multiplier.
I started writing a post about this many years ago, but never finished it. I took a few slow-changing projects of mine that had a pinned Rust compiler, and then updated both the compiler and dependencies to the latest versions. Invariably, everything got slower to compile, even though the compiler update in isolation made things faster!
When a platform has good support and is easy to onboard this is the inevitable result. It's just like the JavaScript ecosystem.
But this is not a downside. Just like I can start a new website project and not use a single dependency, I can start a new rust project and not install a single dependency.
To me the real value is in the tools and core language feature. I could probably implement my own minimal ad-hoc async IO framework if I wanted to, and shape it to my needs. No dependencies.
I don't know, these things ebb and flow.
There's a bit of pushback against high-dependency project structures and compile times recently, and even niche crates like `unsynn` have garnered some attention as an alternative to the relatively heavy `syn` crate.