I’d love someday to hear a young coder tell a story about someone they idolized like, “There was this guy I worked with who once optimized a complicated red- black tree getting 300% performance boost. I was baffled and ask, ‘How’d you do that? That’s impossible.’ To which he responded…”
“‘That’s my linked list my son.’”
I believe that this is exactly what Niklaus Wirth did in the Oberon compiler.
Not unless he had a TARDIS at his disposal. I mean, skip lists were discovered in 1989, and by that time, the Oberon compiler had already existed for a few years. I don't recall the source now (I'd have to dig for it) but I believe that the Wirth anectode referred to his intervention in a case of overzealous students some time before that.
“‘That’s my linked list my son.’”
I believe that this is exactly what Niklaus Wirth did in the Oberon compiler.