Should Umbraco default to precompiled Razor views with Hot Reload?

[liamgold]

I originally posted this over the Umbraco Forum and @JasonElkin recommended opening up this as a GitHub discussion.

I think it would be best if Umbraco moved to precompiled razor views and use hot reloading instead of razor runtime compilation.

Do you strongly agree or disagree? I'd like to hear your opinions!

For context my original question was:

I've noticed in the documentation that the recommended approach for development is using razor runtime compilation.

I don't really see this as a recommended approach elsewhere, should Umbraco move towards precompiled Razor views and Hot Reload?

Are there reasons razor runtime compilation is still recommended?

I see in a default Umbraco 15 template you get:

  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- Razor files are needed for the backoffice to work correctly -->
    <CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>true</CopyRazorGenerateFilesToPublishDirectory>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- Remove RazorCompileOnBuild and RazorCompileOnPublish when not using ModelsMode InMemoryAuto -->
    <RazorCompileOnBuild>false</RazorCompileOnBuild>
    <RazorCompileOnPublish>false</RazorCompileOnPublish>
  </PropertyGroup>

Sounds like it's for the "backoffice to work correctly" - is this a legacy thing for Belle rather than the new Bellissima?

Or is this all because of the Models Builder and how it defaults to in memory?

[SAG-Elmar-Hoefinghoff]

strongly agree, this is one of the biggest security and performance relevant issues with Umbraco for me