Thanks for all the comments .. I think I'm getting a better grip of the concept.
Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
I didn't mean you, I meant the OP, who clearly does not understand the significance of collisions.
Yep, many of my mistakes come not from not knowing something, but miscalculating its signficance in the scheme of things. However, being sensitive to the importance of each aspect of a concept isn't something that happens overnight. Hopefully I'm getting a better hang of it now.

I think I was way off on my look-up table mention. Definitely good to be enlightened on that one. But one thing I'm finding is that I don't like the word "table" in "hash table". It also gives a static flavour to the problem when clearly the challenge is to be found in the dynamic problemsets. So, I'd be more attracted to calling it a "hash function" instead.

Anway I think I need to mull over this more and once again thank you for all the comments, and cas for his interesting example.