[sixthDot]

But linking is slow, plus also only possible using ld.bfd. This causes problems here as I default to gold... For now; each time you start using or close lazarus you have to remind to change ld target.

Otherwise compilation is indeed fast because it uses a system of cache (just like delphi *.dcu system) plus it has modules. On top of that we can add... context-free grammar that's fast to parse, no _insane_ preprocessing (but still some, $ifdef and co).

[badsectoracula]

There are preprocessor macros though you need to explicitly enable them and they don't support parameters (there are workarounds but in practice they're not really needed). FWIW i never had to use them so far, the most i needed from the preprocessor was DEFINE/IFDEF/ENDIF/etc.