A major contributor can be memory access patterns. Traversing trees and pointers not adjacent in memory can result in a noticeable performance drag. Andrew Ke

A major contributor can be memory access patterns. Traversing trees and pointers not adjacent in memory can result in a noticeable performance drag. Andrew Kelley gave an interesting talk about performance wins in the Zig compiler here https://media.handmade-seattle.com/practical-data-oriented-design/ https://media.handmade-seattle.com/practical-data-oriented-d... , but the same idea is broadly applicable.