in reply to Re^10: the annoying keys "key" and "value"
in thread the annoying keys "key" and "value"

First of all, it doesn't make sense to use a hash when you are encoding order for obvious reasons

Exactly!

The proper Perl structure for which would be:

No, then you'd have to do 

(keys(%$param))[0]

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instead of 

$param->{key}

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to get the key. That's much worse.

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Re^12: the annoying keys "key" and "value"
by jabowery (Beadle) on Dec 24, 2010 at 04:24 UTC
    Let me try to nail at least one tentacle of this jellyfish to the wall: When you're trying to represent a hash, you aren't trying to represent ordering between the elements. That much we agree on. So why would someone try to represent a hash with an array of two element hashes each with the keys "key" and "value"?
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      So why would someone try to represent a hash with an array of two element hashes each with the keys "key" and "value"?

      "Represent a hash" makes no sense. I presume you mean "implement an associative array".

      Someone would do that if they wanted to preserve the order of the tuples. We've covered this multiple times already.

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        So you want to have an ordered associative array by using: [{'key'=>somekey1,'value'=>somevalue1},...] because that is superior to having: $order=[somekey1,somekey2,...]; and {somekey1=>somevalue1,...} ?

        Is this because using the associative array for its primary function -- looking up values from keys -- is so much more convenient and efficient your way?

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