Python Metalanguage confusticates and bebothers me...
Erik Max Francis
max at alcyone.com
Tue Sep 19 12:19:03 EDT 2000
Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> I'd be less confused if
> they were called static arrays ("sarrays" for short), mutable
> lists ("lists"), and associative arrays ("hashes"), or something
> like that. Give me time to get used to this new different
> jargon. Actually, the deal with "dictionaries" isn't so much
> that it's confusing as that it takes plain too long to say.
Technically speaking, calling an associative array a "hash" is a
misnomer (though a common one); the hash is the keying mechanism you use
to find where things go in a hash table, which is a common
implementation of an associative array, but isn't one and the same
thing.
--
Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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