Talk:Index (computer science)

This thing could expand almost ad infinitum with an expansive survey of all the different index designs known to Computer Science and discussion of the trade-offs applicable to each, but I think I've taken it far enough to remove the stub marker. If you disagree, put it back, or even better, grow it. Tim Bray 08:14, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Should this page be split? There is a page Search index redirecting here. This could also maybe be called Index structure. I have no clue on a good name for the Array element identifier part. Having only one meaning of a phrase on a page makes it much easier to put it into categories. Nils Grimsmo 11:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe Array index and Index structure are good names? The former is used in DADS, and the latter is a frequently used term (200K hits on Google). Nils Grimsmo 17:26, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Split Index (computer science)
The content of "Index (computer science)" should be splitted into to "Index (array)", "Index (data structure)", and Index (database). It should be a disambiguation page. Sae1962 (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article is about two completely different encyclopaedic entities, I've added Split template to the article, Bezik (talk) 17:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It would be nothing useful in creating of Index (element identifier), either as an article or even as redirect. There is already array index for integer indices, but such "element identifier" will bring a hell of ambiguity, for example, covering associative arrays too. This likely will be either another article without the topic and sources, or another misleading redirect from general to (slightly) narrower. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The lead sentence in memory address is: In computing, memory addresses are index-like numbers used at various levels by software and hardware to access the computer's primary storage memory. Presumably a reader will click on index to find out what an index is.  Then they get dumped into a disambiguation.  They're really looking for a firstly a definition, perhaps a disambiguation of sorts can follow that.  I'm reverting the change to a redirect because it is not clear if there is a well thought out plan for what to do with the content that was blown away by the redirect. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:58, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ironically, it was me both to (inaccurately) insert this link and later, to "dump it into a disambiguation". There exists no topic, prove that it exists if you want to keep this as a non-dab. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, yes, I saw that you had worked on the memory address article and was happy to see someone else had taken an interest in it. You may have noticed that I was on it for a while and then dropped it for other things. It needed a lot of work, I made it better but it still needs a lot more work.  It is not generally desirable to intentionally link to a disambiguation from within article prose, so, if you think this article should not even exist, what do you think index-like in memory address should link to?  I'm having trouble understanding what you are wanting to do here.  Usually before converting a page with substantial content to a redirect, one merges the content into an article on another page.  It doesn't seem to me that has been done yet.  Are you saying the current content on this page is so worthless that it should be completely deleted from Wikipedia?  Wbm1058 (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Get such content and move it to articles. Really a lot of good content is placed here? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks like about eight articles link to here. Are they finding what they're looking for? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Index_(computer_science) Wbm1058 (talk) 21:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Whoa, a lot more than just eight articles are trying to link here. More like 50–60.  This article was MOVED from Index (information technology) on 14 March 2011‎.  So we have:
 * * Links to Index (computer science)
 * * Links to Index (information technology)
 * I don't think it's a good idea to send all these article links to a disambiguation–does anyone want to go back to all of these articles and replace all these links with a more specific link to the specific index article they should be routed to? Maybe they should be linked to Wiktionary instead?


 * 1) programming|computing An integer or other key indicating the location of data e.g. within a vector, database table, associative array, or hash table
 * 2) computing|databases A data structure that improves the performance of operations on a table


 * Wbm1058 (talk) 05:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This only indicates that Wikipedia has many bad links. Let go forth, examine several ones, and then fix it. Wiktionary has a different task and is completely irrelevant to this discussion. There are two kinds of internal links in the article space: good and bad. Good links lead to articles. Bad links have titles without primary meaning, or with broad incorrect use for some historical reasons, and usually lead to dabs. This title is bad (because it is too ambiguous), and most links will be bad, no matter how this "article" will be altered and what it will about. I would even suggest deletion to avoid future confusions had English Wikipedia no strong aversion to the link rot. So, the only option is redirecting to a dab, to Index as I proposed, or maybe to Index taking recent additions into account. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We can fix these links. It's ok. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What is ok, fixing of bad links? Existence of this quasi-article instead of a dab redirect? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The fixing of bad links. I mean, we should do whatever is best for Index (computer science)—be it redirect or what—and whatever is best for this content—be it move to Index (array) or kill it—and not worry about links. The links can be fixed and probably most of them need to be no matter what we decide to do. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 22:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal—Index (computer science) should redirect to Index, and any links to Index (computer science) should instead link to Index (database) or array index (etc). Any objections? Does anyone feel there is anything at Index (computer science) that is not already in Index (database) or array index that is worth saving? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There are several where Index (search engine) is the supposed meaning, like in Lucene. And in one instance it was "lookup table". Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good point—I'm assuming there may be several different articles, hence the "etc" in my proposal. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment (I came here from the notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science, appologies for not completely understanding what the exect disagreement is here.) The term "index" has many different meaings in the field of computer science. The current article seems to duplicate content from array index (redirects to a subsection) and index (database). This should probably be a redirect to Index (per WP:MOSDAB) and links to this page fixed. One might argue that there needs to be stand-alone article on array indexing, array slicing and zero vs. one-based indexing, but it's probably a good idea to use a more specific disambiguation tag for this article than "computer science". —Ruud 20:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think this is essentially the same as my proposal, right? I suppose another option is to move this article to index (array) (or something more specific than (computer science)) and get rid of the db stuff, and have array index redirect to that instead. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 20:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I typed too slow and had an edit conflict with your proposal ;) —Ruud 20:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Close it out
I just finished merging content to other articles. Thanks for helping with redirecting links to other articles or posting disambiguation needed tags, I pretty much wrapped that up too. I think we're all in agreement about what to do now! Wbm1058 (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2012 (UTC)