> Zig's standard library is structured so that you only compile what you need,

> so Zig has no problems adding richer functionality to its standard library.

That’s orthogonal to both

- whether to compile from source in every compilation unit or to compile once, and use (shared) libraries,

and to

- whether to provide the standard library as a single unit, as is typically done in C, where it is a (shared) library, or as multiple interdependent smaller units as in Zig, where the standard library contains multiple source files.

> HTTP, for example, can go into Zig's standard library,

The claim “you only compile what you need” also is incorrect. Zig’s source files (luckily) aren’t fine-grained enough to support that.

For example, https://github.com/ziglang/zig/blob/master/lib/std/http/Clie... contains stuff that not every user of that module will need, for example connection pools and a function to flush a buffer.

The compiler may not generate code for such unused definitions, but it has to parse them, if only to figure out where the next definition starts.