dict type?

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 07:34, Seth Nickell wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-10-11 at 15:22, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Questioning the dict type. A method signature like this:
> > 
> >  foo (array<string> keys, array<int> values)
> > 
> > gives you equivalent performance and data transfer as the dict type,
> > except that the values have homogeneous type.
> > 
> > Perhaps we should have an "any"/variant type:
> 
> >From the python viewpoint, a variant type might be nice to have
> anyway... but I imagine that could be a PITA for C/C++ developers?
> 
> >  foo (array<string> keys, array<variant> values)
> > 
> > Would that be more useful and involve less code than
> > the dict?
> 
> Dicts should map quite nicely to hashtables, which I would assume is a
> common element in most programming systems. Or am I misunderstanding
> something?

Except that you rapidly end up having to use GValues for the values in
GLib and whatever the KDE equivalent is over in that camp because you
need to track the type of the keys. Unless you only allow dictionaries
with homogeneous values. I think that is what Havoc was trying to avoid
(the small, tiny, miniscule, itsty-bitsty annoyance of having to deal
with GValues). Personally, I don't see the GValue thing as a huge
problem providing people use it rationally (i.e. everything should not
be a dictionary; only use dictionaries when you need to, etc).

Cheers,
Malcolm