Skiplists are for most CS students their first and maybe only introduction to a data structure where the theoretical math comes out beautifully (impossibly?) sm

Skiplists are for most CS students their first and maybe only introduction to a data structure where the theoretical math comes out beautifully (impossibly?) small, and gets beaten by some variation of the binary tree if you actually try it in real life. There are a ton more, many of which I learned about from that same lecturer. Fun to talk about and toy with, but you'll never need Y-fast Tries in your day-to-day.