Talk:Locality of reference

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My question refer to Equation (4.1) on Page 132 of Book titled Computer Organization & Architecture -- Designing for Performance -- 6th Ed. by William Stallings ISBN-81-203-2103-0.

Time T2 is the access time from Main memory. This access time indicates only copying data from main memory (M2) to cache (M1) --OR-- it includes copying from M2->M1 and from M1->processor?.

[edit] Locality of reference versus Memory locality

The page should not be merged with memory locality. Memory locality describes the proximity of blocks of data in memory whereas locality of reference refers to the concept that programs often use data that are close to one another either spatially or temporally. The 2 concepts are similar yet distinct.

Well, the problem is that the "memory locality" article does indeed describe the latter idea, just like this article does. They should definitely be merged. --Piet Delport 15:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I started the Memory Locality article (before I had an account) but didn't realize this article already existed. I agree with Piet Delport that they should be merged, though I may not get around to it. --Kimball Robinson Mon Apr 17 22:58:34 2006

This page should not be merged. Locality of reference describes more than memory locality. It also describes locality of access in filesystems, where files in the same directory are likely to be accessed at the same time. Filesystems try to optimise for this behaviour. There are also lots of other instances where the locality of reference principle applies. The article should be expanded to cover more than memory locality, rather than being merged. -- Phillip Lougher Tue May 30 00:37 2006

What are filesystems, but another type of memory? Are the principles really different enough to warrant separating them into two articles?

(Also, just to make it clear: expanding the article would be part of the merging process, not something that stands in opposition to it.) --Piet Delport 12:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems like most people would prefer merging the articles; I added {{merge}} tags to both. -- intgr 08:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

File systems are not just "another type of memory". Also, couldn't memory locality be expanded to discuss multi-processor architectures and failure modes? In such a sense, memory locality can explain the problems with thread locality. -- anonymous 6:42 PM (EST) Jan 15 2007

The Memory locality article covers the same ground as this article, albeit only in the context of main memory. It is essentially a desciption of locality of reference as it applies to main memory. There is no reason that material should not be in this article (where not redundant). Once that is merged in here, there would not be anything left to Memory locality, so it should redirect here (since locality of reference is the more general and widely-known term). -R. S. Shaw 20:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Locality of Reference also applies to other kinds of resources, such as web pages and even parking spaces. The topic of memory locality is a subset of the broader topic of locality of reference. - Rrcjab 23:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)