

Why don't we use data structures more in web applications? - stuifzand
http://peterstuifzand.nl/2011/04/20/web-applications-and-data-structures.html

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quanticle
_Code in web applications feels shoddily written, without a kind of bigger
picture. For example if you display a product in the interface, why don't you
have a data structure representing a product? Or if you have a form for
creating a new product, why don't you have a data structure representing
that?_

The code feels shoddily written because it _is_ shoddily written. Well written
web applications do use these "data structures"; its just that they're called
"models" rather than data structures.

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edtechre
Because it's all abstracted away. B-trees are used in the underlying
implementations of RDBMS. Other data stores such as MongoDB, Memcached, and
Redis use hash tables.

Arrays, linked lists, and dictionaries are usually abstracted away by whatever
scripting language is in use.

I can't think of common use cases for data structures like heaps/priority
queues and graphs. Both come in handy for dependency management and loading
assets from disk, like in the case of writing a package manager or a game. But
nothing that complex is needed for your typical web app.

