Re: Easy to add with push but not to the end of a list

[Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>]

Heime wrote:

>> Programming is somewhere between engineering and craft.
>> In these realms, you usually try to think about what tools
>> are appropriate for a job.
>
> Programming has got nothing to do with engineering or craft.

Unheard of :O

> Stefan mentioned using reverse to put it into another list.
> If needed the execution time would not be much different
> than actually place new elements at end of list.

I think the lists has to be double linked for it to be
theoretically possible to push-last in constant or O(1) time,
otherwise, with our car/cdr lists that are one-directional or
single linked, the execution time of such an operation will be
proportional to the length of the list, i.e. the number of
elements, so it'll be linear time or O(n) where n is the
number of elements of a conceptual/arbitrary list.

But also in practice! Only for you to notice it, i.e.
the difference between O(1) and O(n), the list probably has to
be pretty long, so a large n then ...

Start testing ...

> Nobody will get hurt. Just inefficient for long lists or for
> large number of calls.

That's exactly right.

-- 
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