[erlang-questions] Thoughts of someone new to Erlang

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 12/03/2012, at 11:45 AM, Tim McNamara wrote:
> ## No hash map implementation (?)
> 
> Does Erlang have a hash map implementation that works in constant
> time?

*Nobody* does.  Python's aren't, Smalltalk's aren't, Java's aren't.
However, Erlang has several dictionary-like structures, including
 - dict
 - gb_trees
 - ets
(The process dictionary is in fact a per-process hash table, but
that is no more 'constant time' than anyone else's.)

> Perhaps I should just push through the culture shock and learn
> to love the list!

Lists have their uses, but representing possibly large dictionaries
is not one of them.