Elevator Pitch

• Zig 0.15.1 delivers significantly faster build times across various scenarios, reflecting years of focused compiler and tooling improvements, with even greater speedups expected as self-hosted backends and incremental compilation mature.

Key Takeaways

• Zig's build times for both scripts and binaries have dropped substantially between versions 0.14 and 0.15.1, even before fully utilizing new backends or incremental compilation.
• Real-world examples from the Ghostty project show up to 4x faster script compilation and sub-second library builds, dramatically improving developer workflow.
• Most improvements are achieved despite still relying on LLVM, with further speedups anticipated once Zig's own codegen and incremental builds are fully integrated.

Most Memorable Aspects

• The build.zig script compilation time dropped from over 7 seconds to under 2 seconds.
• Sub-second rebuilds for non-trivial libraries allow developers to stay "in flow" rather than being distracted during builds.
• The expectation that current improvements will soon seem slow as Zig's compilation architecture continues to evolve.

Direct Quotes

• "The compiler is too damn slow, that's why we have bugs."
• "But still, a sub-second build time for a non-trivial library is amazing."
• "These improvements are real, and they're here now. And I suspect in the next couple years, the results posted today will look downright slow. 😜"