Hello, Le Friday 13 June 2008 17:55:44 Karsten Heymann, vous avez écrit : > Maric Michaud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > So, writing C in python, which has dictionnary as builtin type, > > should be considered "more elegant" ? > > IMO that's a bit harsh. >
harsh ? Sorry, I'm not sure to understand. > > You are comparing apples with lemons, there is no such a difference > > between list index access and dictionnary key access in Python. > > [...] > > > If you know in advance the number and names of users, what prevent > > you to initialize completelly the target dictionnary ? > > > > The following code compare the same algorithm, once with list and > > the second time with dict : > > [...] > > > The result is pretty close now : > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17:04:36:~$ ./test.py > > with list 1.40726399422 > > with dict 1.63094091415 > > > > So why use list where the obvious and natural data structure is a > > dictionnary ? > > I'd never argue that using a dictionary is the obvious and natural > data structure for this case. But is it the best? Honestly, as your > very nice example shows, we have two solutions that are equally fast, > equally complex to code and equally robust, but one needs Yes, but my example take ordered integer for keys (users' names) which they should not be in a real case, so retrieving the result is by way easier (and faster) with a dictionnary. > approximately the double amount of memory compared to the other. I don't see how you came to this conclusion. Are you sure the extra list take twice more memory than the extra dictionary ? > So, as much as i like dictionaries, what's the gain you get from using it > in this corner case? It's the very purpose of it's usage, store and retrieve data by key. Cheers, -- _____________ Maric Michaud -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
