I can 'efficiently modify the lists you started with' with a dynamic multi-type array and I have cache locality and random access. I have a single data structure with an 8 byte overhead, 2 byte overhead per node that can be used as a tuple array with direct lookup, a single linked list, double linked list, a queue, a stack, and a balanced binary search tree. This whole structure is allocated in a single contiguous memory chunk and is cache friendly. It can be serialized and un-serialized without any processing which would be required by a Lisp style linked list even if the list was just moved in memory, saved/restored to/from disk or transmitted to another computer.
Lisp DOES predate level 1 cache but we DO have level 1 cache now and it dwarfs all other optimizations on modern computers. Wouldn't it be nice if the hardware was designed to optimize our languages instead of the other way around but I live in this universe rather than an alternate one.
Lisp DOES predate level 1 cache but we DO have level 1 cache now and it dwarfs all other optimizations on modern computers. Wouldn't it be nice if the hardware was designed to optimize our languages instead of the other way around but I live in this universe rather than an alternate one.
What matters is now, not decades ago.