Why are there no ordered dictionaries?

[bonono at gmail.com]

Ben Finney wrote:
> bonono at gmail.com <bonono at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [sort by] some other metadata that is not present in the data.
> > [...]
> > Of course, you may say, just put another column that represent
> > this(some reporting programs I have seen do it this way) and that is
> > an option but not the only option.
>
> It's a pretty good option, and very commonly used. It's known as the
> "Schwartzian transform", or more descriptively, the "Decorate, Sort,
> Undecorate" pattern.
>
Whether it is a good option is judged by the person implement it as he
is the one seeing the whole thing, and not some snippet(or concept) on
the usenet.