Designing Efficient SQL Lexers in Rust: When Spans Beat String Duplication

This article demonstrates how seemingly small design decisions in compiler frontend development significantly impact memory usage and performance. By replacing direct string storage with span-based references and switching from Vec<char> to borrowed &str, developers can build more efficient lexers without sacrificing functionality. These insights are particularly valuable for anyone working on compilers, database engines, or other systems that process large amounts of text data in Rust.