Many years ago I needed to understand hashing for an important work project. I sat down and read Knuth's chapter on hashing. It was very, very good and it helpe

Many years ago I needed to understand hashing for an important work project. I sat down and read Knuth's chapter on hashing. It was very, very good and it helped to greatly accelerate my project work. However. What I also learned is how impossibly large a topic even just hashing is. A section of Knuth's encyclopedia isn't sufficient space to cover it thoroughly (for some definition of thoroughly) and further research showed how much progress had been made in the subject since Knuth published his work. This isn't a complaint about Knuth, again, I'm grateful for how much his writing accelerated my understanding. But further research underlined how impossible a task he's undertaken.