use binary strings in dictionaries to save memory

[adbar]

See discussions in #72 and #125.

The PR cannot be merged until the dictionaries have been re-processed to account for the change.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 96.38%. Comparing base (2caac80) to head (6550bef).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #128      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   96.34%   96.38%   +0.03%     
==========================================
  Files          33       33              
  Lines         575      581       +6     
==========================================
+ Hits          554      560       +6     
  Misses         21       21              

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[adbar]

@juanjoDiaz I believe the PR is ready to be merged, do you have anything to add?

Edit: all the tests pass and the evaluation results are strictly the same on my computer.

[juanjoDiaz]

Sorry for the slow response.

Did you test the performance impact of this?
Is it worth it for the memory savings?

[adbar]

Yes, the difference in performance is either not noticeable or not significant. The package is a little bit lighter even with compressed pickle files so this is obviously good.