[experiment] Add the ability to disable NativeCompileCache

[savetheclocktower]

Have you checked for existing feature requests?

• Completed

Summary

NativeCompileCache is a piece of the app that we don't understand that well. It was introduced back in 2015 to work around a Node performance issue that, for all we know, could've been fixed ages ago. It's 2024 and it's worth seeing if we still need this thing.

We should make it possible to bypass NativeCompileCache for a given app session — probably via a command-line switch.

What benefits does this feature provide?

Pulsar is sometimes very slow to start up when restoring an existing project, and we don't know why. One theory I have is that it's due to our reliance on cached modules that, for whatever reason, are no longer valid. Adding a quick way for a user to bypass NativeCompileCache would give us a quick way to validate this assumption.

Even if it wasn't a fix for this issue, it would allow us to test whether its continued inclusion is warranted — after all, if it doesn't improve performance anymore over the standard approach, then we can simplify the app and jettison outdated code.

Any alternatives?

Not that I can think of. Any alternatives would be more disruptive — i.e., removing the feature altogether — and a bit foolhardy.

Other examples:

No response