Revamping associative arrays

[Piotrek]

bearophile pisze:
> Piotrek:
> 
>> No! No! No! Maybe you are wrong.<
> 
> Life is complex so I am usually wrong, because it's hard to consider all sides of a thing, but sometimes other people are even more wrong :-)
> 

I didn't mean to be offensive. All people (including me) have tendency 
to claim that they point is the only right.


> In D set.keys needs a good amount of memory and time, it's useful only in special situations, for example when you are sure your AA is small. Andrei will probably push to add/replace something to find keys and a lazy way.
> 

Yes that could be good. Any views, ranges are option of course. However 
I was referring to semantics not mechanics.

> Refusing forever to use a popular (and usually quite appreciated) language just because you don't like a single small feature is stupid. I don't want to force you to like Python, but the choice of a language must be based on a bit more global evaluation of it. Every language under the sun has plenty warts. C++ has enough warts (far larger than the one you have listed) that you can write a big book on them, but people keep using it still.

The more time I live the more stupid things I find in my behaviour.
But to be honest I have longer list of reasons why I don't like Python
- dynamic typing
- whitespace indentation
- performance
- not friendly for C-syntax-boys like me
- lack of many features that are in D
and some more

I find D to be sufficient alternative for all scripting language (good 
std library is a cure). I said it before but I can say it again. Using 
many languages when one should do is waste for my time and efficiency ;)

C++ (or C in embedded systems)is used because of extremely big momentum 
created for years expressed in invested money in learning, software 
development, etc. But hopefully everything could be stopped. It's a 
matter of time and force.

> "Not doing scripting any more" too is probably a not smart thing to say, because in most programming jobs I've seen, there are small files to munge, commands to automate, things to show or plot, and so on, etc. A scripting language (even just shell scripting) is designed for such things.

It's not my choice and I'm glad here. My duties don't include scripting 
any more. And to me, scripting languages are some kind of joke (having D 
around).

Despite it could seem (at first look) that I'm against you I'm not 
(except that area connected with those creatures). I really like the 
benchmarking done by you and I really appreciate how much time (much 
much more than me of course) you gave this community.

First I must pay same debts then maybe I will start the project I'm 
thinking of for long time.

Cheers
Piotrek