On 2/1/2012 3:59 AM, Daniel James wrote:
There are very good alternative open source implementations out there. You shouldn't need to rewrite anything.
But if, as you say, the standard implies this trade-off, then conformant implementations will end up with roughly the same trade-off. This is only an option if your justification for a low-quality hash function is incorrect. Hashing functions are easily implemented and fairly easily adjusted, replacing a complete container implementation or adjusting one is much more work. If one has a separate hash function and hash container it makes more sense to depend on the hash function to be responsible for the quality of the hash rather than the container, in addition to it being simpler for the developer using it. Since there are /very good/ implementations available, what is the justification for a poor one in the Boost library? Besides, it would not occur to most developers that the Boost implementation of standard hash is not up to the quality standards that Boost is known for overall. It never occurred to me to check, and I have the necessary background to determine that it isn't if I had checked, and to understand the consequences that it is not. I have some code to replace, and some performance results to review to see if they were effected (probably not, but I need to check to be sure). Topher