Talk:LIFO (computing)
Better analogy?
could a stack of plates be used as a better analogy to help explain LIFO rather than a crowded elevator?
eg: a dish is placed on top of the stack, and when one is needed, it's taken off the top of the stack.
- You're onto something, but the problem with plates is that their order doesn't really make a difference as they're typically all the same. --TuukkaH 13:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
But it's still better than the rubbish elevator analogy. What about a queue for the checkout at the supermarket? The firstone there is the first one to leave.
- Well, queue is not a stack and therefore not a LIFO but FIFO structure! Better analogy is a bookshelf where you place books on the top of one another. This way you can directly access only the last book you placed on the top. They are all books (the same class) but different ones (different objects - instances). --kostandin 22:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- Unfortunately books tend to get placed in a bookshelf next to one another ;-) Trying to come up with stacks, I remember in carpet shops and the likes, the salesperson would show the carpets in a huge stack by taking the topmost and moving it to the top of another stack. --TuukkaH 23:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- Lipshultz uses an illustration of a spring loaded commercial dish stack cart/holder, where the bottom spring compresses as dishes are added, and pushes up as they are taken off. This is fine as a graphic, but only as a graphic. (repeated in line as commented out note) I tend to agree the observation elsewhere on this page that dishes are too similar (as are pieces of paper) without a graphic aid showing the forced ordering. // FrankB 16:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Another one?
What about Magic: The Gathering's stack? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.127.122.7 (talk) 09:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC).
- That's a FIFO stack.
Cleanup
I have added the cleanup tag, The first paragraph under "In Computer" seems to have had a cut off ending as it does not make sense and finishes with a comma. The further 2 lines are awkward and I am sure somebody with the appropriate literary skills could rewrite them into something better. 203.214.82.130 12:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
- Fixed, sorry about that! (my bad) // FrankB 16:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Added {Unref}
- and a references section. A few text book references, even indirect mentions of stacks and stack operations should be good enough. Ahhh, got one--Schaum's Data Structures! My bookshelves seem more bent toward algorithm texts. // FrankB 16:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
It occurs to me
- duplicate post of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:FIFO#It_occurs_to_me
after THIS CHANGE, that the article has been slanted by the experience and knowledge of it's contributors without understanding the distinctions involved into one that is essentially a computing article. LIFO and FIFO are in essence Information Theory topics which are implemented in computing as stack (data structure) and queue (data structure), for computer manipulation of data. Management science and certainly accounting use of the same term suggests perhaps both these topics be rewritten to be a general Information sciences treatment and leave the computer implementations to the articles on stacks and queues!
- I've accordingly added the cats:
Cybernetics, Discrete mathematics and Information theory to see if some other eyes have a interest in this point.
- See also the discussion on talk:FIFO about merging, which supports my thought. // FrankB 20:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Other meanings
'Last in first out' is also a common term in employment contracts in the UK at least, where troubled companies make the last employees to join redundant first, hence 'last in first out'. Its very common in large factories etc. where work is not inherantly skilled and so removing the newest worker won't reduce the capabilities of the organisation. Perhaps it should be included here or on a disambig page. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 23:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)