There's a few other options that I think in combination would make things much better. 1) Make using proc macros in your own application code faster: Encourage

There's a few other options that I think in combination would make things much better. 1) Make using proc macros in your own application code faster: Encourage better macro re-export hygiene. Basically, one of the reasons serde + serde_derive is so slow is because for serde re-exports serde_derive to compile before it itself can be built. A solution (I didn't come up with this myself) would be to have a crate that re-exports serde and serde_derive together; see top comment herehttps://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1602eah/associated_proc_macro_pattern/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1602eah/associated_pr... 2) Make using libraries that use proc macros faster: Publish pre-expanded source code, such that no proc macros run for dependencies. Some work would have to be done around conditional compilation to make things just work (TM), but I think it could be done. (Who knows, maybe it'd be really hard to make the compiler deal with expanding proc macros on stuff behind conditional values. Also, there'd be issues regarding macro hygiene. Both solvable, but I'm not sure how much effort they'd take).