While reconstructing my threaded Red-Black tree data structure, I naturally assumed that due to invalid branch predictions costing significant amounts of performance, by eliminating branching in low-level data structures, one can significant enhance the performance of your application. I did some profiling and was stunned to discover that my new, optimized Red Black tree was… SLOWER then the old one! This can’t be right, I eliminated several branches and streamlined the whole thing, how c...
