Question

I might be confused between hashmap in Java, and map/dict in Python.
I thought that the hash (k/v abstraction) of Java is kind of the same as dict in Python

But then what does the map datatype do?

Is it the same abstraction as the hashmap abstraction? If so, then how is it different from dictionary?
I went through the docs, but it took me to whole together different paradigm: functional programming.

Answer 1

Map is not a datatype in python. It applies a function to a series of values and returns the result.

>>> def f(x):
...     return x**2
... 
>>> list(map(f, range(5)))
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16]

Often for a simple case like that to be “pythonic” we use list comprehensions.

>>> [x**2 for x in range(5)]
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16]

You are right in your comparison of hashmaps and dicts.