Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
Of course, some algorithms can (and, we have learned, do) prefer some bits over others, but that's inside the implementation black box. I would think every bit should carry an approximately equal weight.
Ideally that would be true, but you need to consider the performance cost of making it so. Dict could go to the trouble of thoroughly scrambling the hash bits before even making the first probe, but that would slow down *every* dict lookup. The way things are, it uses a very simple technique for the first probe that *usually* gives good results, which speeds things up overall. -- Greg -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
