title: Should cache keys be hashed?
body: <p>I am working on an existing system that using NCache.  it is a distributed system with large caching requirements, so there is no question that caching is the correct answer, but...</p>
  
  <p>For some reason, in the existing code, all cache keys are hashed before storing in the cache.</p>
  
  <p>My argument is that we should NOT hash the key, as the caching library may have some super optimized way of storing it's dictionary and hashing everything means we may actually be slowing down lookups if we do this.</p>
  
  <p>The guy who originally wrote the code has left, and the knowledge of why the keys are cached has been lost.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone suggest if hashing is the correct thing to do, or should it be removed.  </p>