Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettin...@gmail.com> added the comment: > I still disagree with this design since it's not > how a person using a hash map expects it to behave.
All mapping data structures have tradeoffs. For the core dict type, we chose a structure that benefits most Python users most of the time. If a user expects that the core dict type magically handles all cases optimally, that is a bug in their expectation, not a bug in Python. For the atypical pattern shown in slow_dictionary(), we recommend choosing a different data structure such as an OrderedDict or simply storing the keys in a deque. This isn't a blow-off answer -- the stated goal of the collections module is to offer "specialized container datatypes providing alternatives to Python’s general purpose built-in containers, dict, list, set, and tuple." Those alternatives have different performance characteristics that may better serve particular access patterns. Thanks for the suggestion, but this is not a bug. It is an intentional design decision. Changing the dict implementation to a linked list would make your case perform better but would make most users worse off. ---------- resolution: -> not a bug stage: -> resolved status: open -> closed _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <https://bugs.python.org/issue44555> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
