bevyengine / bevyengine/bevy

Provide a precompiled version of bevy for quick development

Open
#24,967 4 comments 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Cross-Cutting A-Editor C-Feature S-Needs-Goal X-Needs-SME
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
48.2k
Forks
4.8k
Avg merge
3d 22h
Merged PRs (30d)
161

Description

## What problem does this solve or what need does it fill?

Right now starting up a new bevy project to do a quick test, prototype or play with it is a toll because the engine needs to be compiled from scratch. I believe this is a friction point for beginners as waiting ~30 minutes for the engine to compile to see a hello world is not a good developer experience

## What solution would you like?

Provide a precompiled version of bevy for these purposes. An idea could be a providing a precompiled dynamic library with default features (2d, 3d, ui, audio) + `dynamic_linking` + `dev`. When the user wants something more custom, in that moment it can commit to building the engine.

## What alternative(s) have you considered?

I thought about precompiling the engine and storing it in a S3 bucket using `sccache`, however I think while it partially solves the problem it adds considerable complexity, infrastructure costs and maintenance from my side (e.g. upgrading bevy/rust version)

## Additional context

For example, in React Native development a similar solution exists, where you use a precompiled "Expo Go" mobile app with commonly used features and modules so you can test and play with the framework quickly, and when you need to add custom modules or you are ready for release the user can build the app from scratch so it fits their needs

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reviewing how a new Bevy project currently compiles the engine and how the `dynamic_linking` and `dev` features are configured. Compare the proposed default 2d, 3d, UI, and audio configuration with the existing project setup; done would be a maintained precompiled path for quick prototypes while preserving custom builds.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
build-system, developer-experience
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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