ArrayList, Hashtable, or ... for holding in-game-objects

[kaffiene]

Wow, this is the BEST thread about lists I've ever read!  :D
So many good ideas here!

My 2 cents: I tend to use ArrayList. Their 'sense' of order appeases me.

I'd like to add, for the OP: Whichever you use (Bag, ArrayList, etc.), you probably wont see a noticable difference, until you're working with the big boys on some voluminous project. But I must admit I share your enthusiasm for optimizing  ;)

Hehe.  Me too.  I use ArrayList and when I'm done, I profile to see what my bottlenecks are.  I've never had a container class be the bottle neck so I've never ended up optimising it.

But.... I still love to read about people's optimising efforts.  It satisfies the inner geek :o)

[ReBirth]

The main idea behind this problem is how big your object's size.

[Roquen]

Maybe on disk but in memory...

Actually I think of main memory as being a drive.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[kaffiene]

Maybe on disk but in memory...

Actually I think of main memory as being a drive.

You shouldn't.  Disk access is many orders of magnitude slower than memory.  That's why Cas's comment about Lists not being ideal for n-memory storage needs even though it's perfect for indexing into databases is well made.

[Roquen]

Disk drive are like semaphores...not concurrency kind...the communication by flags, where the reader is blind.