javascript - Why is pop faster than shift?

Question

Douglas Crockford, in JavaScript: The Good Parts, states that "shift is usually much slower than pop". jsPerf confirms this. Does anyone know why this is the case? From an unsophisticated point of view, they seem to be doing pretty much the same thing.

Answer 1

To remove the returned item without re-addressing the array and invalidating all references to it, shift() requires moving the entire array around; pop() can simply subtract 1 from its length.