1.7 megabytes is essential nothing in both modern disk/flash space and network costs. This isn't to say that efficient, small code isn't important, but it seems really common for a lot of programmers to freak out when there's some minimum executable size required for general "runtime" stuff, even when practically speaking it doesn't really matter in the real world outside of niche embedded system applications.
If each 43 bytes you compiled expanded to ANOTHER 1.7mb, then, yeah, that's not good, but that isn't the case here.
If each 43 bytes you compiled expanded to ANOTHER 1.7mb, then, yeah, that's not good, but that isn't the case here.