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> isn't slow better in this case?

No, guy's looking for a hash table hash, not a cryptographic one. For a hash table you're looking for low collisions and high throughput (so your hash table is fast) first and foremost.

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Even for cryptographic hashes, fast is what you want most of the time. Look at it this way: when you connect to a web site via SSL, all the data you send will be hashed for authentication. Do you really want this to be slow?

Cryptographic hashes should be as fast as possible while not sacrificing collision resistance. Hashtable hashes should be as collision resistant as possible while not sacrificing speed.

Sort of anyway.

For cryptographic purposes you usually want fast digests and slow key derivation functions.

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