Hi,

I was messing around with SmallDictionary when I suddenly realised that 
I can't find a single reason to use it over a normal Dictionary. While 
its name and class comment imply that it is somehow an optimised 
Dictionary, I don't see any measurement where that actually holds up. 
The following was run in a Pharo 7 image on a recent VM (see below):

| d |
d := SmallDictionary new.
d sizeInMemory. "24"
[100000 timesRepeat: [
	1 to: 100 do: [ :i | d at:i put: i] ] ] timeToRun. "0:00:00:05.226"

[100000 timesRepeat: [
	d at: 48 ifAbsent: [] ] ] timeToRun. "0:00:00:00.041"



| d |
d := Dictionary new.
d sizeInMemory. "16"
[100000 timesRepeat: [
	1 to: 100 do: [ :i | d at:i put: i] ] ] timeToRun. "0:00:00:00.385"
[100000 timesRepeat: [
	d at: 48 ifAbsent: [] ] ] timeToRun.  "0:00:00:00.006"


As you can see, SmallDictionary is 8 bytes larger per instance and 
significantly faster while reading and writing (I know that this isn't a 
good benchmark but it suffices to make my point).


Is anyone aware of a reason for hanging on to SmallDictionary? I'm also 
curious to know how SmallDictionary came to be. There must have been 
some advantage over Dictionary at some point in the past.


Cheers,
Max





Image version: Pharo 7.0
Build information: 
Pharo-7.0+alpha.build.961.sha.a69e72a97136bc3f93831584b6efa2b1703deb84 
(32 Bit)

VM version: CoInterpreter VMMaker.oscog- nice.2281 uuid: 
4beeaee7-567e-1a4b-b0fb-bd95ce302516 Nov 27 2017
StackToRegisterMappingCogit VMMaker.oscog-nice.2283 uuid: 
2d20324d-a2ab-48d6-b0f6-9fc3d66899da Nov 27 2017
VM: 201711262336 https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm.git $ 
Date: Mon Nov 27 00:36:29 2017 +0100 $ Plugins: 201711262336 
https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm.git $

OS: macOS 10.13.5
Machine: MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)