git-annex loads very slowly when dynamically linked

[ghost]

git-annex has a lot of Haskell dependencies, which makes it really slow to load up when it's dynamically linked.

It takes over 3 seconds to start on my machine, even for just a simple "git-annex version". This constant delay makes git-annex very painful to use in the terminal. Both the official build and a simple static version of the Nix build load nearly instantly.

I put the following override in my config.nix:

cabalStatic = haskellPackages.cabal.override {
  enableStaticLibraries   = true;
  enableSharedLibraries   = false;
  enableSharedExecutables = false;
};

gitAnnexStatic = haskellPackages.gitAnnex.override {
  cabal = cabalStatic;
};

That builds and runs correctly, so git-annex should probably be static by default. I assume this also affects all other Haskell tools, but git-annex is the only big one I use.

(I'm still completely new to Nix (and Haskell), so I have no idea how to further test or profile this. Is there a reason Haskell tools, in particular the ones with giant dependencies, are dynamically linked?)

[peti]

I guess the severity of this issue depends on the speed of your machine / hard disk. On my laptop, git annex version responds within a second, which isn't super fast, but the delay is not very noticeable either. Anyway, it might be worthwhile to link this binary statically just to reduce the number of run-time dependencies.

[peti]

Fixed by 6476678.

[ghost]

Switching git-annex over to haskell-ng lost this fix and reintroduced the problem.

(I don't get haskell's arcane build setup, or else I'd've submitted a hopefully trivial patch.)

[peti]

peti@f145201 disables shared liking for git-annex again.