Linked lists aren't fast in general but there are workloads on which they outperform vectors -- which is why it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each data structure.
Most lower-level memory allocators e.g. tend to use linked-lists afaik because you end up removing and inserting slabs a lot, the Linux kernel also makes wide use of linked lists as well. If there were substantial performance gains to be made without other large tradeoffs it would have been done.
Most lower-level memory allocators e.g. tend to use linked-lists afaik because you end up removing and inserting slabs a lot, the Linux kernel also makes wide use of linked lists as well. If there were substantial performance gains to be made without other large tradeoffs it would have been done.
EDIT: Some additional info: http://www.jikos.cz/jikos/Kmalloc_Internals.html