alt Hacker NewsAbsolutely, it's a very common technique :)
I wasn't sure about writing the article in the first place because of that, but I figured it may be interesting anyways because I was kind of happy with how simple it was to write this optimization when it was all done (when I started out with the task I wasn't sure if it would be hard because of how our code is structured, the libraries we use etc.). I originally posted this in the rust community, and it seems people enjoyed the post.
I think its a good article and I enjoyed learning a little more about rust, but would have been nice to point out this is a common technique used for tuple storage in databases for those not familiar.
It comes off as being a novel solution rather than connecting it to a long tradition of DB design. I believe PG for instance has used a null bitmap since the beginning 40 years ago.