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CppCon 2016: Nicholas Ormrod “The strange details of std::string at Facebook"

CppCon · talk · Watch on YouTube

C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languagesSoftware performance & optimization

What it is

Nicholas Ormrod's CppCon 2016 talk on how Facebook optimizes std::string with its open-source replacement fbstring. It covers storage layout tradeoffs, small string optimization and memory allocation behavior.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN returns to it as the go-to talk on string internals, small string packing and why small percentage optimizations matter at scale.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “it's still definitely worth a watch”

    Talk on std::string internals at Facebook

    pjscott, 2020-01 · Recommendation · in “Libc++'s Implementation of std::string”

  2. “I also like the talk by Nicholas Ormrod”

    Facebook engineer on std::string internals and optimisation

    jiggawatts, 2024-03 · Recommendation · in “Algorithms for Modern Hardware”

  3. “Yes, there are really cool packing techniques. See this talk for example”

    Shows clever string packing techniques

    D4ckard, 2024-12 · Recommendation · in “Fixing C Strings”

  4. “this is a great talk to listen to”

    Why small percentage optimisations matter at scale

    def-pri-pub, 2026-03 · Recommendation · in “Faster Asin() Was Hiding in Plain Sight”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: std::string, fbstring, small string optimization, memory allocation, cppcon

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