There Are No Zero-cost Abstractions
summary
Argument: claiming zero-cost abstractions is false and dangerous. Case study: adding arena allocation to protocol buffers (rolled out from late 2013) shifts cost into compiler work, pushing 90/99th-percentile file compile times up until single-file compiles hit 15-minute compile timeouts; deploying C++ modules reduces but does not remove the cost. Another case: using unique_ptr introduces extra loads and exception handling paths that measurably increase latency unless careful ABI and moves are used. Practical rule: measure, prefer simpler abstractions, and choose where to pay the cost.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction and apology
- 1:54What abstractions cost
- 5:44Protocol buffers cost surprise
- 17:10Unique pointer overhead
- 28:46Function extraction trade-offs
- 33:01Guidelines for abstractions
- 35:51Abstractions as fire
- 36:35Q&A session
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