It's funny, because while I remember I was forced to implement one back in my CS days, I questioned the point and practicality of it (as I did with other things

It's funny, because while I remember I was forced to implement one back in my CS days, I questioned the point and practicality of it (as I did with other things like in the OS class). But I am thankful now for having been put through the exercise (as well as competitive grading, based on the average runtime with random hashtables constructed). Knowing how a hash table is implemented allows you to understand why it's an efficient structure.