Avoid compiling Razor views every time an application starts

[PaulBol]

Prerequisites

• I have written a descriptive issue title
• I have verified that I am running the latest version of Nancy
• I have verified if the problem exist in both DEBUG and RELEASE mode
• I have searched open and closed issues to ensure it has not already been reported (Permormance Issues using RazorViewEngine-Partial #2167 and very slow when perform the first request #2866 look similar but are not related)

Description

As mentioned in the thread #2866 compiling Razor views takes time. With the latest package from Nuget I found that launching the compiler for the first view takes 3-4 seconds and each additional view needs around 50 ms to compile.

This is an issue for a Nancy server in an application that users launch and expect to work with as quickly as possible. I understand that with the current Nancy architecture Razor views need to be compiled after each start of an application.

To ensure that a desktop application starts as quickly as possible I came up with a workaround that involves calling GetOrCompileView by reflection and a IViewCache implementation which writes the compiled assemblies to disk and loads them on subsequent starts. Rather hacky to say the least.

What I would like

• Get some feedback if there is a more straightforward way to avoid repeated view compilation
• If there is none, have better support in the Nancy framework for caching compiled Razor views

Steps to Reproduce

• Create project with Nancy.Hosting.Self.NancyHost and RazorViewEngine with a route returning a Razor view
• Start application
• Open page in browser -> takes several seconds to respond

System Configuration

• Nancy version: 2.0.0 (Nuget)
• Nancy host
  • Nancy.Hosting.Aspnet
  • Nancy.Hosting.Self
  • Nancy.Owin ()
  • Other:
• Other Nancy packages and versions: Nancy.ViewEngines.Razor 2.0.0
• Environment (Operating system, version and so on): Windows 10
• .NET Framework version: 4.5.2