That's an absurd conclusion. Depending on language compexity and optimizations applied, the compilation-time can vary wildly. One of the Go compilers can compile large code bases in less than a second. The Go language was designed to allow for that but it's also a product of how much optimization is applied in that particular compiler. There is still a need for a release compiler with a different compile-time vs run-time trade-off. The MLton compiler performs whole-program analysis and optimization - that is obviously going to be more time-consuming than local optimizations. The conclusion is so absurd that it leads one to believe you want to spur a heated debate.