alt Hacker NewsNinja does it. Visual Studio does it.
> In fact I can't even think of a reasonable case where it would be even a minor problem.
On my last project, a build took 2+ hours on a 128 core threadripper. It wasn't every day that the lowest level stuff changed, but it was probably once a sprint or so. Waiting 2 hours for the compilation database to be ready isn't tenable. Rider and Visual Studio could generate a usable model of the project in 2-3 minutes.
OK that does sound like an actual problem. But I think you would only be in a position to need to do it that way if you don't use CMake, Ninja, or one of those other tools. Bear works the way it does because it's kind of a hack. I have only wanted to use it for Make projects. If the problem is big enough for you and constant enough then you can switch tools to avoid having to compile. It's just an uncommon problem IMO.