random thought: using fork to speed loading

[frederik@ofb.net]

Dear Zsh People,

I've been wondering how to get my Zsh startup time down. For me, 0.1s
is a bit too laggy, although I've seen reports of people having much
longer startup times, upwards of multiple seconds.

I wonder if there is a way to arrange for Zsh to act like a server,
where instead of starting a new Zsh every time I open a terminal or
Screen window, I could ask some server process, which has already
loaded my .zshrc, to fork and provide a way to communicate with the
child.

Clearly there are potential pitfalls regarding staleness when .zshrc
is modified, having correct parent processes, environment etc.

Also, this question isn't meant to help me address my immediate
practical and very slight needs. I mostly wanted to "throw it out
there" in case others have heard of such a proposal or would find it
interesting to implement.

Thank you,

Frederick