Keep in mind that a lot of this was written during an era where even modestly complex data structures/algorithms had to be rolled by hand. The philosophy is re

Keep in mind that a lot of this was written during an era where even modestly complex data structures/algorithms had to be rolled by hand. The philosophy is really to not waste time implementing optimizations that may not be necessary. Naturally you should reach for the best tool you have in your tool box. So if you language of choice has a hashmap that can be used with no additional work, go for it. But don't wait two days rolling your own red-black tree because it might be better.