🥞 Stacks Explained Like You're 5

A pile of pancakes, last in first out

Day 38 of 149

👉 Full deep-dive with code examples

The Pancake Stack

Mom makes pancakes and stacks them:

🥞 ← Last one made (on top)
🥞
🥞
🥞 ← First one made (on bottom)

Which pancake do you take first? The top one!

Last In, First Out = LIFO

Stack Operations

Two main things you can do:

• Push: Add to top
• Pop: Remove from top

Push "A" → [A]
Push "B" → [A, B]
Push "C" → [A, B, C]
Pop      → [A, B] (returns C)
Pop      → [A] (returns B)

Real Uses

Undo/Redo: Each action is pushed. Undo pops the last one!

Browser Back Button: Each page is pushed. Back pops!

Function Calls:

main() calls
  login() calls
    validate()

When validate() finishes, pop back to login()!

In One Sentence

Stacks store data like a pile where you typically add/remove from the top (last in, first out).

🔗 Enjoying these? Follow for daily ELI5 explanations!

Making complex tech concepts simple, one day at a time.