It seems that often articles like this overstate their case to the point that it really detracts from the message.
There is a valid point, that a naive analysis of linked list vs. static array based on intro CS course descriptions of their properties isn't a good model for what is going on in a modern system.
The real lesson is: if you want to achieve high performance you simply must understand the impact of things like cache localization, vectorization, hardware prefetch, pipelining etc., and how your data structure operation will interact with them.
"Never use a linked list" is a silly lesson to take from this though. "In these situations, linked lists might not perform as well as you expect" is more like it.
"Use the right data structure for the job" is still as good advice as it ever was.
There is a valid point, that a naive analysis of linked list vs. static array based on intro CS course descriptions of their properties isn't a good model for what is going on in a modern system.
The real lesson is: if you want to achieve high performance you simply must understand the impact of things like cache localization, vectorization, hardware prefetch, pipelining etc., and how your data structure operation will interact with them.
"Never use a linked list" is a silly lesson to take from this though. "In these situations, linked lists might not perform as well as you expect" is more like it.
"Use the right data structure for the job" is still as good advice as it ever was.