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Just learning Python. Reading through the official tutorials. I ran across this:
While appends and pops from the end of list are fast, doing inserts or pops from the beginning of a list is slow (because all of the other elements have to be shifted by one).
I would have guessed that a mature language like Python would have all sorts of optimizations, so why doesn't Python [seem to] use linked lists so that inserts can be fast?
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Array list is faster (Python list) most of the time, while linked list gets closer (and faster further) only within 1% length to the list start ( a = round(i / 99) ). So even though Python list needs to shift all the items following the deleted item, it's still faster.
To start with Python, it does not have a linked list library built into it like the classical programming languages. Python does have an inbuilt type list that works as a dynamic array but its operation shouldn't be confused with a typical function of a linked list.
Arrays allow random access and require less memory per element (do not need space for pointers) while lacking efficiency for insertion/deletion operations and memory allocation. On the contrary, linked lists are dynamic and have faster insertion/deletion time complexities.
Linked lists differ from lists in the way that they store elements in memory. While lists use a contiguous memory block to store references to their data, linked lists store references as part of their own elements.
Python uses a linear list layout in memory so that indexing is fast (O(1)).
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list is implemented as an arraylist. If you want to insert frequently, you can use a deque (but note that traversal to the middle is expensive).
Alternatively, you can use a heap. It's all there if you take the time to look at the docs.
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