Use DICTIONARY!! but why?? A Senior Developer’s Performance Guide

Is It Vritra - SDE I
7 min readAug 19, 2024

In software development, performance isn’t just a luxury — it’s a necessity. As senior developers, we often face the crucial decision of selecting the most appropriate data structure for our tasks. The choice between List<T>, Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, and HashSet<T> can make or break an application’s performance, especially at scale. This article aims to provide you with the insights needed to make informed decisions, backed by performance metrics and real-world scenarios

We’ll explore when to use each, their performance characteristics, and how to optimize them for peak efficiency

LIST<T>

Picture a Swiss Army knife. Versatile, right? That’s our List! It’s the go-to tool for when you need a bit of everything.

well-suited for scenarios requiring ordered collections and frequent positional access

What’s it good for?

  • Storing a collection of items in a specific order
  • Adding or removing items from any position
  • Accessing items by their index

Practical Application: To-Do List App

Consider a task management system where order is crucial:

--

--