Re: [PATCH] Implement `equal' for hash tables

On 8/14/26 13:13, Sean Whitton wrote:
> I think we'd really like to see examples.  I don't think I have ever
> done it so I have a hard time believing "extremely"

Suppose you have same JSON configuration. The most natural
representation of it is a list of hash tables that contain nested hash
tables and lists. You perform some expensive operation only if the
configuration changes:

(when (not (equal old-config new-config))
   (expensive-op))

The configuration may be a parse tree, key-value store, or any other
kind of database for which nested hash tables is a convenient
representation.

>> To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single programming
>> language which distinguishes between equality and identity created
>> since Java that does not support comparing hash tables for
>> equality.
> 
> Looks like Python has it.  Perl doesn't.

Perl is ancient. My point is that if everyone is doing X and you are 
doing Y, it may be worth considering whether you also should do X 
instead of Y.

-- 
mvh Björn Lindqvist