The elegance of Queues and Stacks

I've been meditating on the beauty of Queues and Stacks. Like Lists, they are collections of objects, but with their own special attributes.

Queues are like a line of customers: the first one in line is the first one you'll serve (FIFO, First In First Out). These could be used for queued up messages that you have to process in order.

Stacks are like a deck of playing cards: the last one you lay on the top will be the first one you draw off the top (LIFO, Last In First Out). These could be used for tracking a sequence of actions that you might need to undo.

You can Peek() at the top item in a Queue or a Stack, but you can't reference a specific item by index. You have access only to the First In or Last In (respectively), and can only add things to the next spot in line.

I like how Queue.Dequeue() and Stack.Pop() both return the next object and remove it from the collection. It seems tidy to do it all in one method. But you're not stuck with that; like I said, you can still Peek() if you just want to see what's next, but leave the object in place.

If you need to deal with your objects in an order relating to how you encountered them, as opposed to sorting by some attribute of the object, then a Queue or a Stack might be a better fit than a List.