Time complexity of dictionary insertions

[Justin Sheehy]

Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> writes:

> > Min O(1), Max O(N), Ave O(1).  If the hash function is doing a terrible job
> > (e.g. maps every key to the same hash value), make those all O(N).
> 
> C++ STL junkies know this as "amortized constant time".

So does anyone who has ever studied much at all about algorithms, data 
structures, and optimization.

It's not a C++ thing.  It's a computer science thing.

-Justin