Speeding Up (small) Ruby Hashes

Something I must confess is that I absolutely hate writing these blog posts. It’s not quite as bad as having to give a conference talk, but it’s up there on the list of activities that feel like pulling teeth to me. Not that I’m not proud of the result. I absolutely am. But the process of writing them is very painful for me. It’s particularly true of the very first sentence, as the post progresses, it gets a bit easier Yet, I force myself to do it, because it helps me think about problems, and “compile” knowledge in my head. I’m so terrified of posting something wrong or inaccurate that I tend to double-check some long-held assumptions, dig into more details about how some things are implemented, etc. And very often, quickly after publishing the post, I think of new ideas I previously missed. This post is about one such idea I had right after publishing the previous one on shrinking Ruby hashes. If you haven’t read it yet, please do, as this one is a direct continuation. AR Tables…