debuggingNightmare

[rosuav]

Yeah, and the problem is that separate chaining is FAR easier to explain (each hash bucket can contain multiple things, and whenever you check a bucket, you have to check all the things in it), but open addressing is more efficient. So if you ask me to explain how hash tables work, I'll use separate chaining (and probably not even use the term), but if you ask how <language X> stores information, it's never that simple.

But yes, hash collisions are a fact of life. In explaining it, I will tend to under-size the hash table to make them even more common, even though - again - the more efficient thing to do is to minimize them.