I noticed that is an initial parsing stage that seems to parse all of the files in the project. But often times when I navigate to a file I haven't opened yet, the code does not appear to be parsed. After a little bit, it looks like Kdevelop parses the code and then everything is ok. What I am wondering is why the code doesn't appear parsed when I open the file for the first time?

One thing which is not computed in the background is the highlighting. So if the delay is <200ms, I guess it's applying the highlighting.