2483: Linked List Interview Problem - Revision history

141.101.99.163: /* Explanation / Depends upon the coder, the code, the things you're actually trying to do and* in what development environment. No simple generalusation possible.

2025-03-03T20:15:50Z

‎Explanation: Depends upon the coder, the code, the things you're actually trying to do *and* in what development environment. No simple generalusation possible.

Gunterkoenigsmann: /* Explanation: Linked lists are surprisingly slow in 2025. */

2025-03-03T15:34:24Z

‎Explanation: Linked lists are surprisingly slow in 2025.

ConscriptGuide: Lowercase

2024-08-12T22:53:20Z

Lowercase

Kynde: /* Explanation */

2024-01-18T12:27:22Z

‎Explanation

Kynde: /* Explanation */

2024-01-18T12:27:12Z

‎Explanation

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 Linked lists are, historically, one of the two main data structures that represent sequential data, along with arrays. Unlike arrays, they have the theoretical advantage of {{w|Big O notation|O(1)}} insertions and deletions thanks to not needing to reallocate the entire structure, but have O(n) random access (see {{w|Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dynamic_arrays|comparisons}}). However, modern processors' cache structure favors data that are located next to each other, pre-fetching the adjacent items, and modern processors can perform bulk memory moves, making resize operations faster. Finally, using linked lists usually implies dynamic allocation of each list member as opposed to reserving memory for a bunch of items in a bulk and then using that memory once an item has to be added. Memory allocation tends to be slow on modern systems and adds overhead for managing the information, which byte is allocated for what item, which can be significant, particularly for smaller data items; many small allocations also tend to fragment memory, which can lead to it being wasted and unavailable to the app later, particularly in long-running processes such as web servers. These properties tend to make linked lists poorly suited for most system programming applications in which a programmer might write algorithms to manipulate data structures, instead of using existing libraries.
-Modern programming languages usually provide abstractions (often named "array," "vector" or "list") which interact with the sequential data at the memory level, providing access to this data while using arrays, linked lists, hybrids of the aforementioned technologies, or other approaches, and the programmer doesn't necessarily need to care one way or another. Additionally the time a malloc() and a free() take, as well of cache considerations often make linked lists way slower than arrays or vectors. Knowing the underlying concepts is still useful, however, when creating fast running code which scales well to large data, avoiding (e.g.) traversing the list over and over again, or performing particularly inefficient operations.
+Modern programming languages usually provide abstractions (often named "array," "vector" or "list") which interact with the sequential data at the memory level, providing access to this data while using arrays, linked lists, hybrids of the aforementioned technologies, or other approaches, and the programmer doesn't necessarily need to care one way or another. Additionally the time a malloc() and a free() take, as well of cache considerations may make linked lists way slower than arrays or vectors, very much depending upon how either compiler or interpreter converts the user's code/script into actual machine implementation (in some cases, it's possible that the way it is ultimately handled is ''identical'', though in others it may be possible for either/both of them to be run less than optimally compared to the best usage case). Knowing the underlying concepts is still useful, however, when creating fast running code which scales well to large data, avoiding (e.g.) traversing the list over and over again, or performing particularly inefficient operations.
 Cueball's code implements a routine whose name implies that it does a mundane task, specifically traversing a linked list, but in fact emails the contents of the list to a technology museum. This could reveal private data that might be stored in a linked list, such as bank account numbers, medical information, passwords, etc., and would thus be a terrible idea. This is why interviewers - presumably job interviewers - would "get really mad".

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 Linked lists are, historically, one of the two main data structures that represent sequential data, along with arrays. Unlike arrays, they have the theoretical advantage of {{w|Big O notation|O(1)}} insertions and deletions thanks to not needing to reallocate the entire structure, but have O(n) random access (see {{w|Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dynamic_arrays|comparisons}}). However, modern processors' cache structure favors data that are located next to each other, pre-fetching the adjacent items, and modern processors can perform bulk memory moves, making resize operations faster. Finally, using linked lists usually implies dynamic allocation of each list member as opposed to reserving memory for a bunch of items in a bulk and then using that memory once an item has to be added. Memory allocation tends to be slow on modern systems and adds overhead for managing the information, which byte is allocated for what item, which can be significant, particularly for smaller data items; many small allocations also tend to fragment memory, which can lead to it being wasted and unavailable to the app later, particularly in long-running processes such as web servers. These properties tend to make linked lists poorly suited for most system programming applications in which a programmer might write algorithms to manipulate data structures, instead of using existing libraries.
-Modern programming languages usually provide abstractions (often named "array," "vector" or "list") which interact with the sequential data at the memory level, providing access to this data while using arrays, linked lists, hybrids of the aforementioned technologies, or other approaches, and the programmer doesn't necessarily need to care one way or another. Knowing the underlying concepts is still useful, however, when creating fast running code which scales well to large data, avoiding (e.g.) traversing the list over and over again, or performing particularly inefficient operations.
+Modern programming languages usually provide abstractions (often named "array," "vector" or "list") which interact with the sequential data at the memory level, providing access to this data while using arrays, linked lists, hybrids of the aforementioned technologies, or other approaches, and the programmer doesn't necessarily need to care one way or another. Additionally the time a malloc() and a free() take, as well of cache considerations often make linked lists way slower than arrays or vectors. Knowing the underlying concepts is still useful, however, when creating fast running code which scales well to large data, avoiding (e.g.) traversing the list over and over again, or performing particularly inefficient operations.
 Cueball's code implements a routine whose name implies that it does a mundane task, specifically traversing a linked list, but in fact emails the contents of the list to a technology museum. This could reveal private data that might be stored in a linked list, such as bank account numbers, medical information, passwords, etc., and would thus be a terrible idea. This is why interviewers - presumably job interviewers - would "get really mad".

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 [[Category:Comics with color]]
 [[Category:Tips]]
 [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Coding interview tip.
+This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a coding interview tip.
 In computer programming, a {{w|linked list}} is a type of data structure that stores data throughout memory accompanied with memory addresses of the next, and potentially previous data point, establishing a relative ordering for a collection of data. Several common software engineering interview questions involve manipulating or otherwise interacting with linked lists. Possibly because programmers in the current day rarely work with linked lists directly, Randall suggests that such structures belong in a "technology museum," and thinks it would be more beneficial to mankind to email the list to such a museum rather than perform any useful work with it.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Coding interview Tip.
+This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Coding interview tip.
 In computer programming, a {{w|linked list}} is a type of data structure that stores data throughout memory accompanied with memory addresses of the next, and potentially previous data point, establishing a relative ordering for a collection of data. Several common software engineering interview questions involve manipulating or otherwise interacting with linked lists. Possibly because programmers in the current day rarely work with linked lists directly, Randall suggests that such structures belong in a "technology museum," and thinks it would be more beneficial to mankind to email the list to such a museum rather than perform any useful work with it.

2483: Linked List Interview Problem - Revision history

141.101.99.163: /* Explanation */ Depends upon the coder, the code, the things you're actually trying to do *and* in what development environment. No simple generalusation possible.

Gunterkoenigsmann: /* Explanation: Linked lists are surprisingly slow in 2025. */

ConscriptGuide: Lowercase

Kynde: /* Explanation */

Kynde: /* Explanation */

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

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Donald Trump: Reverted edit by anti-crap user

Theusaf: Reverted edits by 👖🔥 (talk) to last revision by Jacky720

141.101.99.163: /* Explanation / Depends upon the coder, the code, the things you're actually trying to do and* in what development environment. No simple generalusation possible.