Talk:Random access

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Random access is the ability to access a random element of a group in equal time.

No, the equal time might (or might not) be a consequence of random access but it not the defining property.

The opposite is sequential access

Not the opposite but an example of another access method.

The term random access memory (RAM), however, is used for ferrite core or semiconductor chip memory circuits used in computers.

No, random access is a property of the memory that does not depend necessarily on the technology used to implement it. It is possible to design ferite core memory etc where random access is not possible. The term random access memory is used for memory which can be accessed randomly.

I kind of think "random" is a misnomer, but a name that someone gave the technology in its infancy and it stuck. The word implies a probability distribution or lack of determinism, a concept which is unrelated to the concept of "random access".

Because of this I am changing the first line of this article from "random access is the ability to access a random element of a group in equal time" to "random access is the ability to access an arbitrary element of a group in equal time".

I believe in the existing sentence the word "random" was used improperly. The word "random" in random access is simply a name that the technology is called. But its actual function has little to do with randomness and so the word "random" should not be used in a description of the technology's function.

This is my opinion. If I am wrong, feel free to revert.

Mbarbier 21:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed deques

Deques are bad example for constant access time as they have linear O(n) access time. Removing. 71.59.115.159 (talk) 19:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Most likely deques were added here because they have an implementation in C++ based on circular dynamic arrays that does allow random access. That's not usually part of the deque abstract data type though, so I agree with your edit. Dcoetzee 22:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)