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On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Maciej Stachowiak wrote: > > jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov writes: > > > > so what do I have here? "dictionary" and "meaningful identifiers". hmm. > > I also considered using "hash-table" (used by CL, so I just said "No."), > > "assoc-array" (one letter longer than "dictionary", you lose), and even > > "auto-hash" (where did that come from?). > > > > A dictionary could be implemented as a hash table, an association list, > a procedure, a red-black tree, an AVL tree, a B-Tree, an ordered > association list, etc. To reserve the name `dictionary' for the > hashtable implementation seems arrogant to me. > the great Larry Wall wrote that the three virtues of a programmer are hubris, laziness, and impatience. I believe all Schemers on this mailing list are guilty on all three counts (some more guilty than others, perhaps). I say this: the whole dictionary => ordered entries concept is more than a little tenuous. If, at sometime in the future, somebody writes a collection type data structure with ordered elements, then I propose they name the type either "ordered-collection" or "telephone-book"! On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Jay Glascoe wrote: > On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Tel wrote: > > > Hash tables don't maintain order of the keys. Dictionaries are in > > alphabetical order (last time I looked at a paper one was a while > > back). You have to be a little bit careful when freely associating > > concepts. > > I don't want to keep my entries ordered! > > but is "ordered entries" really an integral attribute of dictionaries? > Aren't paper dictionaries ordered because people can't hash the word > they're looking up in their heads? Or is e.g., "aardvark" somehow > related to the Aare River in Switzerland? ah yes, the old "aardvark" related to the "Aare River" argument. But "telephone-book", now we're talink! "Hansen, James" IS probably related to "Hansen, James Jr.". "telephone-book", *telephone-book*, TELEPHONE-BOOK !! > > "last time I looked at a paper one was a while back" > > right, on-line > dictionaries can internally store their entries in whatever order they > darn well please. Does this make any difference to the user? Does this > make, e.g. http://www.m-w.com/ not a *real* dictionary? ah, but there aren't many on-line telephone books, now are there? > I'll comment on the latest revision of your suggested API in a later > message. > > - Maciej > as always, thanks for your input Maciej. BTW, how about simply "table"? that's what Dylan calls its hash tables. Jay Glascoe jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov