I'm not an expert on the language, but I see Rust's build times as fairly justified. Rust's focus is on execution speed and correctness, which means that the compiler needs to be extremely pedantic with CPU targets to know how to optimize your release. Once you have a target outlined, it has to acquire and build the latest versions of your dependencies with the highest level of optimization possible for your specific architecture... that's just a lot of computing, period. Caching is a half-solution to this as the author suggests, but frankly there isn't much juice left to squeeze out of the Rust fruit.
Now, there are still ways to make the compiler choke: the mention of instantiations towards the end is a great example. But in my (non-professional) experience, the build times are pretty tolerable for what it's providing.
Now, there are still ways to make the compiler choke: the mention of instantiations towards the end is a great example. But in my (non-professional) experience, the build times are pretty tolerable for what it's providing.