Do you mean using indices into a backing array instead of pointers if the maximum length is known to be small? That probabdy helps but still has the cache issue

Do you mean using indices into a backing array instead of pointers if the maximum length is known to be small? That probabdy helps but still has the cache issue to some degree no? (also I feel like this is arguing semantics a bit, but I'm sincerely wondering: is a linked list without pointers still a linked list?)