Re: Scheme style auto-resizing hashtable (fwd)

[Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow@mit.edu>]

jglascoe@jay.giss.nasa.gov writes:
> I'm sure you're all anxious to hear about my hash table extension  ;)
> 
> front page news: my extension underwent the GREAT RENAMING:
> 
> $ for x in *.[ch] makefile; do
> >     perl -ne '                                                          
> >     s/hashtab/dictionary/g;
> >     s/hash table/dictionary/g;
> >     s/table/dictionary/g;
> >     s/dictionarys/dictionaries/g;
> >     print;
> >     ' $x > foo
> >     mv foo $x
> > done
> 
> I decided to go with "dictionary" because
> 
> On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Ian Bicking sagely murmured:
> 
> > A rich set of datatypes could also be a powerful addition.  Make
> > dictionaries, not hash tables -- mostly that's just a matter of
> > terminology, but I think it's important.  As a programmer, I don't
> > care about the fact that hash tables use hashing, I care about the
> > fact that hash tables are a collection of values indexed by keys.
> 
> and
> 
> On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Maciej Stachowiak hummed this tune:
> 
> > ... Scheme has a tradition of using meaningful identifiers and uniform
> > surface syntax ... 
> 
> <taken slightly out of context>
> 
> 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?).
> 

I forgot to fully qualify my statement - it should have read
"meaningful and precise identifiers". I think `hashtable' or
`hash-table' is better than `dictionary' because `dictionary' calls to
mind a general class of types which provide mappings from keys to
values, while `hash-table' calls to mind a specific implementation
that guarantees average-case O(1) insertion and deletion. 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.

I'll comment on the latest revision of your suggested API in a later
message.

 - Maciej