And premature optimization (ignoring architectural concerns) is usually a mistake. Profile, find hotspot, then use your clever cache-friendly hand-rolled tree

And premature optimization (ignoring architectural concerns) is usually a mistake. Profile, find hotspot, then use your clever cache-friendly hand-rolled tree algorithm when it makes sense. I'd rather a programmer understand that than to have a bunch of programming puzzled memorized. And for seniors, architectural questions are far more critical. Fixing a hotspot may get you a multiple or maybe 10x. But architecture is what gets you orders of magnitude.