Chances are there's probably something similar to dictionary in Python in your languages or at least it's a import/#include away. Although I don't use general programming languages at all, in my used language (G'MIC), I do something like dict$var=input where $var is a defined variable, and this way I can access input by doing ${dict$var} and that's similar to Python dictionary. In C++, there's hash table implementation out there via github. That being said, there are sometimes when you don't need a hashtable dependent on the hashmap, and sometimes, it's just as simple as basic mathematics to access data.