Mutable objects which define __hash__ (was Re: Why are tuples immutable?)

[Nick Coghlan]

Jeff Shannon wrote:
> To be honest, given how easy it is to key a current dict off of object 
> id, I don't see much real value in creating a separate dict type that 
> does it by default.  But as long as it's an addition, rather than a 
> change to existing behavior, then the only real problem with it is the 
> standard "makes the language bigger".

Something which used different behaviour at C-level could be a fair bit faster, 
since it wouldn't have to jump back into the eval loop all the time when looking 
up the hash or comparison functions. Passing id() into the dictionary isn't so 
good either, as you have to make the function call on every item lookup, and you 
can't effectively iterate over the contents of the dictionary.

Its utility might be more obvious as a set variant rather than a dictionary 
variant, though, as the best use I can see for it is in using sets to classify 
mutable objects like lists (such as Antoon's example of applying special 
processing to certain graph points).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at email.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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