From: Trans <transfire@...>
Date: 2006-08-13T08:05:11+09:00
Subject: Re: PATCH to make internal Hash class retain order...


Robert Klemme wrote:

> Adding to David's comments: you're changing semantics of one of the core
> classes which is in itself a dangerous thing.  Plus, you increase the
> memory footprint of a hash which is IMHO a very bad idea for such a
> widely used data structure (and some of these hashes grow huge).  So, if
> you want to patch ruby core, make it at least a subclass of Hash so
> people can choose.
>
> Then of course there's a whole bunch of other things that one should
> consider.  Is the name properly chosen?  Do we have to provide a means
> for the user to *define* the standard order on creation?  This is e.g.
> the way Java's TreeSet works - and IMHO it's superior vs. having to call
> order! manually. etc.

All good points. I still think it would be nice if such a class were
built-in to Ruby with literal:

  [ :a => 1, :b => 2 ]

Maybe as a red-black tree class.

T.