# Taking TTFX seriously: Can we make common packages faster to load and use

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/taking-ttfx-seriously-can-we-make-common-packages-faster-to-load-and-use/74949>\
**Category:** Performance\
**Tags:** ttfp\
**Created:** [January 20, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/taking-ttfx-seriously-can-we-make-common-packages-faster-to-load-and-use/74949 "2022-01-20T17:16:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![jlapeyre](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jlapeyre/32/4514_2.png) [@jlapeyre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jlapeyre)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2022, 7:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/taking-ttfx-seriously-can-we-make-common-packages-faster-to-load-and-use/74949/9 "2022-01-21T19:32:00Z")

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> [@Raf](#):
>
> But there is still the problem of packages that were written without much thought to startup time, and TTFX - the time-to-first whatever a package does most, is sometimes really slow.

I put some effort into this every now and then, reading about packages for analyzing, and techniques, trying things. I have tried both `precompile` and running code during precompilation. I have never seen any benefit. In fact, running `somefunction(...)` in a `let` block as above made TTFX _slower_ in one case. That is, running `somefunction(...)` the first time after `using` the module took longer and allocated more. I know there are ways to investigate to find what to call or precompile, etc. But, it’s fairly complicated.

So in my case, it’s definitely not “written without much thought to startup time”. It’s that reducing start up time takes a lot of learning and a lot of time.

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