Yeah, it is distracting and I'm sorry about that. Similarly, I'm sorry to publicly snipe, 'cause I really do admire folks who make an effort to learn by doing, and better yet, write up their experiences.
But "disgust" was the word I wanted. I can't point at his choice and say "this is all wrong". Instead, I point at it and claim that it "smells" wrong to me, I'd never do it that way, bad taste, etc. Then I tried to argue about why my taste is offended.
Regarding O(1) versus O(k), I actually wrote "expected O(1)". That is, _expected_ constant time, versus guaranteed constant time. Though your point that the number of fields is a constant, 4, is certainly true.
