On 8/21/06, thoran @ thoran. com <thoran / thoran.com> wrote:
> So, if the use of the {} notation for Hash is not to include ordering
> because on balance it is preferred for reasons of speed/size not to
> include ordering and because it is reasonable to expect that a hash
> won't by default be ordered, then OK.

Um. This is an overstatement. Hashes aren't ordered by default because
hashing is an order-ignorant operation.

Yes, you've heard people -- including me -- saying that having
something that knows its insertion order would be good if it's
natively in C-Ruby because then we could have a literal constructor (I
am inclined to agree with Hal at this point that [ a => b, b => c, c
=> d ] is a good choice) and we wouldn't have umpteen-dozen different
implementations of this which *is* needed from time to time, but not
necessary as a standard behaviour.

It would be ordered and have arbitrary key values, but it would not,
in fact, be a Hash. That's the point that some folks have tried to
make about this.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue / gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
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