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Re: Hardware for linked lists

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On 03/04/2012 03:29 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
> Almost everything that seems important to me in computer architecture is
> connected either with moving data around or accessing memory (possibly a
> redundant characterization).
>
> No matter how I approach the subject: bandwidth, switch connectivity,
> prefetch, whatever, I come up against what I take to be a version of an
> argument that Andy Glew has passed along to me:
>
> You're so old-school, man. No one uses arrays any more. People use, as
> Terje put it some years ago, irregular data structures (as opposed to,
> again, as Terje put it, naive data structures--like arrays).
>
> Rather than trying to find yet another way to ask the same question, I
> decided to try Google. I put in the query:
>
> linked lists hardware architecture
>
> Now, mind you, just as with smart phones (which I never use), I rarely
> use linked lists, but since a computer that can't do linked lists
> handily is no longer of any interest, I'm interested in any way of
> attacking this problem--even though it's not usually my problem.
>
> What do I turn up?
>
> http://www.futurechips.org/thoughts-for-researchers/quick-post-linked-lists.html
>
>
> "Should you ever use linked lists" (why not use arrays instead).
>
> Since I don't use linked lists, I can't really evaluate the arguments,
> but naturally, I like the drift of the implied these (no, you probably
> should be using arrays instead of linked lists).
>
> Now, i realize that this is actually a software question, but my
> sneaking suspicion is that hardware is being built to conform to
> sub-optimal programming practices (using fancy data structures instead
> of "naive" data structures).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Robert.

As I recall, and FWIW, the IBM 360 we had at U. Michigan back in the 
'60's had some special microcode +/- for traversing linked lists, so the 
question is not exactly a new one.

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Hardware for linked lists Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> - 2012-03-04 16:29 -0500
  Re: Hardware for linked lists Terje Mathisen <"terje.mathisen at tmsw.no"> - 2012-03-04 22:41 +0100
    Re: Hardware for linked lists "Andy (Super) Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2012-03-04 20:15 -0800
      Re: Hardware for linked lists "Andy (Super) Glew" <andy@SPAM.comp-arch.net> - 2012-03-05 19:53 -0800
        Re: Hardware for linked lists Andrew Reilly <areilly---@bigpond.net.au> - 2012-03-06 11:38 +0000
          Re: Hardware for linked lists nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2012-03-06 12:16 +0000
        Re: Hardware for linked lists Bakul Shah <usenet@bitblocks.com> - 2012-03-06 23:24 -0800
          Re: Hardware for linked lists Terje Mathisen <"terje.mathisen at tmsw.no"> - 2012-03-07 09:08 +0100
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Noob <root@127.0.0.1> - 2012-03-06 13:25 +0100
      Re: Hardware for linked lists Terje Mathisen <"terje.mathisen at tmsw.no"> - 2012-03-06 17:11 +0100
  Re: Hardware for linked lists nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2012-03-04 21:51 +0000
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> - 2012-03-04 17:16 -0500
      Re: Hardware for linked lists nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2012-03-04 23:15 +0000
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Chris Gray <cg@GraySage.com> - 2012-03-04 17:04 -0700
      Re: Hardware for linked lists nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2012-03-05 09:01 +0000
        Re: Hardware for linked lists Chris Gray <cg@GraySage.com> - 2012-03-05 14:07 -0700
    Re: Hardware for linked lists George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2012-03-05 00:57 -0500
  Re: Hardware for linked lists cjt <cheljuba@prodigy.net> - 2012-03-04 19:09 -0600
  Re: Hardware for linked lists MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> - 2012-03-04 18:24 -0800
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Robert Myers <rbmyersusa@gmail.com> - 2012-03-04 22:26 -0500
  Re: Hardware for linked lists Andrew Reilly <areilly---@bigpond.net.au> - 2012-03-05 03:59 +0000
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2012-03-04 23:38 -0500
      Re: Hardware for linked lists Jim Haynes <jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu> - 2012-03-05 11:08 -0600
  Re: Hardware for linked lists jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-03-05 22:21 +0000
    Re: Hardware for linked lists Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2012-03-05 15:14 -0800
      Re: Hardware for linked lists John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> - 2012-03-06 01:44 +0000
        Re: Hardware for linked lists Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2012-03-06 00:41 -0800
  Re: Hardware for linked lists torbenm@diku.dk (Torben Ægidius Mogensen) - 2012-03-06 11:19 +0100
    Re: Hardware for linked lists nmm1@cam.ac.uk - 2012-03-06 11:07 +0000

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