Discusses two approaches to parallelizing compilation: multi-process (single-threaded compiler with build system spawning multiple instances) and in-process multi-threading (used by Rust and Zig). Compares trade-offs for language design.
<p>I'm not sure if there are already good names for this, but I can't find anything useful when I look online.</p>
<p>Obviously, when compiling programs, parallelizing the work is crucial. There seem to be two main approaches:</p>
<ul>
<li>Compiler is single-threaded, build system spawns N compilers (C, C++, others I'm sure)</li>
<li>Compiler is multi-threaded (Rust, Zig)</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm looking into this because I'm looking at designing a programming language, and I have fast compilation as an explicit goal. Zig and Rust obviously have some of the same ideas but wildly different compilation speeds. C is known to be quite fast to compile, while C++ templates are slow(?).</p>
<p>In terms of parallelization, why is it that a parallel compiler seems to be the choice for newer languages? Is this a coincidence or explicitly required because of e.g. circular imports?</p>
# Parallelizing Compilation: In-Process vs Multi-Process
Source: [https://lobste.rs/s/lzgtkz/parallelizing_compilation_process_vs](https://lobste.rs/s/lzgtkz/parallelizing_compilation_process_vs)
I'm not sure if there are already good names for this, but I can't find anything useful when I look online\.
Obviously, when compiling programs, parallelizing the work is crucial\. There seem to be two main approaches:
- Compiler is single\-threaded, build system spawns N compilers \(C, C\+\+, others I'm sure\)
- Compiler is multi\-threaded \(Rust, Zig\)
I'm looking into this because I'm looking at designing a programming language, and I have fast compilation as an explicit goal\. Zig and Rust obviously have some of the same ideas but wildly different compilation speeds\. C is known to be quite fast to compile, while C\+\+ templates are slow\(?\)\.
In terms of parallelization, why is it that a parallel compiler seems to be the choice for newer languages? Is this a coincidence or explicitly required because of e\.g\. circular imports?
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