Chapter 4, Lesson 4

Hi there

Being in the middle of moving into my appartement notwithstanding, I found some time to continue with the course.

Today I completed lesson 4 of chapter 4, which was all about Specialized Collections.
BitArray and BitVector32 are very usefull for working with Booleans and manipulating bits.I was not aware of the existance of BitVector32, which is in fact a structure rather then a class, and although I find the syntax of it to be a bit sloppy, I convinced of the usefullness of it.

Bit Packing seems a smart way to reduce storage space in memory. BitVector32 allows you to use this technique of storing several smaller numbers into one large number in real life.

StringCollection and StringDictionary class are simply strong-typed equivalents of ArrayList and HashTable. When you work with strings, and only with strings, usethese ones to rid yourself of the overhead of casting objects to strings.

CollectionUtils is your basic shortcut to a series of helper tools that allow you to quickly create Case-insensitive Hashtables and SortedLists.

Next lesson will be all about Generic Collections.

Be seeing ya.