Why Your Linked List Wants to Be a Bloody Tree

Quick Answer: A linked list hits a wall when searching because it’s stuck in linear O(n) time. By giving every node two pointers instead of one, you create a Binary Search Tree (BST). This wacky structure uses its branching logic to cut your search space in half with every step, turning a billion-element crawl into a 30-step sprint. So, what happens if you make a linked list where, instead of every node pointing to a single node, every node points to two more? You’re a human being, you’ve got free will, and you can do what you want. But if you do that, you’ve not got a linked list anymore, you’ve got to have made a bloody tree, haven’t you? Trees are super interesting data structures. They are flexible, they have loads of use cases, and they are basically the reason your computer doesn't catch fire when you try to find a file. One of the coolest forms is the Binary Search Tree (BST), which takes the biggest problem we have with linked lists—the search time—and absolutely guts it. What