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Talk:Distributed computing

New Page for the Models Used in Distributed Computing Theory
Besides the frequently used PRAM model for parallel computing, I mentioned the LOCAL and CONGEST models which are commonly used in the theoretical community for distributed computing. But I think there should be a separate page listing and defining the most common models and their variants. --Infty1000 0110 (talk) 10:29, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Concurrency, Component Location and Distributed Systems
I agree with many of the above comments, especially dealing with the level of specificity of the examples.

1 of the most egregeous misstatements in the article is the use of the word "simultaneously" and the subsequent explanation of the relationship between distributed and parallel systems. A distributed system does not imply any degree of concurrent execution of system subprocesses; indeed applications in an SOA for example - a distributd architecture - mostly execute serially. 1 of the benefits of a distrubuted system (processes not necessarily under the control of a single operating environment or context - i.e., not necessarily symmetric) is the potential for parallelism, but not an implication of it. As such, the reverse is true of the relationship specified - a parallel system is a type of distributed system or model - although parallelism in and of itself is less a "model" and more of a technique employed (akin to threading in a single component).

And no, theoretcally, distributed computing does not imply physically sepaparate processing contexts (hardware), but the contemporary practical reference frame is that of the Client/Server model in addition to more specialized servers nowadays (the advent of blades, increasing client power, etc.). I.e., today a client is seen as a PC, a server as a middle tier or database server. The Cient/Server model - as with the Peer-to-Peer model for example - are examples of distributed computing - the main requirement being components in different address spaces working together toward a common end, not necessarily the implication of the introduction of networks/connectivity. There's also the difference btw distributed "computing" (higher-level contemplation based on discussion of protocols and cooperation models in general), distributed "systems" (a more static, prescriptive, architecture, although some components may not necessarily cooperate/process distributively or all the time) and distributed "process" (an actual dynamic execution sequence segment within the system where components cooperate distributively).

Another key point is to distinguish btw cooperation and communication - as well as the dual ole of the term "Peer-to-Peer". For example, distributed components that cooperate/process Client/Server protocol (the client sees only the server, which may become a client itself and turn and face it's own server) actually communicate "Peer-to-Peer" (they speak the same language/are on ewual footing in that regard - not to be confused with "Peer-to-Peer" distributed processing/cooperation).

Will have to come back to this; Hopefully this helps facilitate/spur the needed rewrite of the article.

-- Victor Moran

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.189.250.130 (talk) 10:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I do agree that autonomy is a big part of distributed system, and depending on the interpretation of 'network,' I agree with the definition of "distrubuted system." However, I do not agree that a distributed program is simply a program running in a distributed system. If, for example, we take the internet to be a distributed system, then the above implies that practically every program we use is a distributed program. - Jonathan Gallagher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.159.18.48 (talk) 20:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Architecture part
It seems to me that the Architecture part could use some additional information. Also in the that part it looks like client server, 3 tier and n tier are said to be diffrent architectures though I'm currently under the impression that 3 tier and n tier are more like an update to the client server model but basically the same. I found this article on the internet http://www.microsoft.com/belux/msdn/nl/community/columns/hyatt/ntier1.mspx (not sure if posting links is allowed).

I'm no expert on this area so plz correct me if i'm wrong. I've been working for school on a project with the pages distributed computing, parallel computing, concurrent computing and some others. It seems a couple of IT areas really overlap alot.

I hope this post helps u improve this article.

Best Regards,

Jip Fransen

Jipfransen (talk) 10:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

P2P
The current second paragraph here seems extremely weak.

With the recent work in JINI, it seems to me that much more could be said about P2P. I don't feel awake enough at present to say it!

Bernfarr, 04:47, 19 Oct 2002

openmosix
is openmosix cluster or distributed?--dgd

Too specific
I think this a narrow view of the subject. I feel that "Distributed" means that processing for a task takes place on more than one machine. This view incorporates classical interpretations of the term as used in Distributed COM (DCOM), for example. It also is friendlier to interpreting client-server and 3-tier architectures as distributed, which I think they are. --168.98.178.80, 17:46, 23 Feb 2004

I think this is a too broad view of the subject. Why is there a Multiprocessor systems section? They are not distibuted at all! --84.220.108.55 12:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Effects on component life, energy consumption, etc
Does anyone have any data about the effect running distributed computing programs has on component life, energy consumption, etc? --203.26.206.129 03:37, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I second! I was going to ask that myself! FireWire (talk) 07:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

rm: Project Dolphin

 * Project Dolphin takes a count of the number of keys you press on your keyboard. This is mostly an event made of teams.

Removing this non-information from the article. There is no description of at least a goal of the project, nor links to Wikipedia or elsewhere. The one link I found, http://dolphin.twistification.net, seems to be dead. And what is an "event made of teams"? —Herbee 18:42, 2004 May 24 (UTC)

Distributing Operating System - separate article?
Distributed operating systems are quite different than distributed computing and they deserve an article on their own, IMHO. I will wait for answer for some time and then start such article if nobody will oppose it.Szopen 11:47, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Plan 9 is one of the distributed operating systems

 * I agree, this article doesn't say anything about what a distributed operating system is, yet distributed operating system links to this article. --Abdull 10:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Distributed computing - a category on its own?
Also, here we use "distributed computing" as a name for whole class of problems, of which recent fashionable terms like grids etc are just another one incarnation. I think the topic deserve a category on its own, and articles on problem such as FLP impossibility result, failure detectors, software distributed shared memory, prediction, etc etc Szopen 12:10, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

DISTRIBUTED Computing
Why Are Y'all steering folks AWAY from DISTRIBUTED Computing??Folding@Home ?!?!?!? I will join either organization that get's my 'LINDOWZ' linux machine to work on Work-Units... Even 'Koppix' LOL I've done 25 F@H WU's while folding [Console mode] along with GooGle-Labs-F@H [Client mode]on my WinTel CPU and I'm dieing to try a install with a FLASH Drive - I think it would be a 'GAS' ! [$25/128megger-stick ] adding the most successful 'Folding At Home' [Protiens] to the catagories [ I hope ! ] re: http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html, http://folding.stanford.edu/FAH3.html --144.160.5.25, 00:54, 2 Dec 2004

 * Nope not steering away, just biding our time. -- Dbroadwell

Definition
There is no definition what is 'distributed computing' in this article. In my opinion distributed computing means programs located on physically separated computers which must communicate in some way in order to complete a given computing task. saer

And what would be the difference between Distributed systems then? Szopen 11:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

BTW, i see no sense in Distributing Operating SYstem pointing to Distributed computing. It's absurd. DOS is part of DC, but it deserves and article on its own! Szopen 11:34, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Distributed computing environment
Distributed computing environment is probably 'See also' page. --Michal Jurosz 13:19, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Big Merge!!
I saw merge tags on Distributed programming and Distributed system and wihtout a blink I merged them here as sections. I'll revisit to cleanup later as I need this article in better shape. This article needs a structure, anyone have ideas? -- Dbroadwell 02:42, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, cleaned it up a litte in that i shuffled the paragraphs together is a somwhat logical order, the ones that were less technical first. Tagged for cleanup too. -- Dbroadwell 03:52, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, I will revert that, ok? I believe, as I stated before, that Distributed Systems and DIstributed programming need article on their own. They are both DC of course, but that does not justify merging. E.g. History of Poland is of course part of History of Europe, as well as history of say... Belarus but that does not mean that History of Poland should be merged with History of Belarus as sections in History of Europe!
 * Well, people have ignored my statement, but I will not behave like others. I will wait few days before revert. Maybe Distributed system is somewhat redundant, but definetely not distribued programming. -- User:Szopen 07:19, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) (signarure pulled from history by Dbroadwell)
 * Please sign your comments. Raul, whom is working on his distributed computing PhD, is making a outline for this article. If distributed programming has enough for an article itself it will get it, I think it will ... for now I was trying to centralize the mess to cleanup and copyedit it. In short please wait till after this weekend before going on a wholesale reversion spree. -- Dbroadwell 20:34, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, bit outline applied. To be honest the information that was in 'Distributed programming' was jsut a nice list of distributed computing archetectures and so, really does belong here. Not that 'Distributed programming' doesn't deserve an article of it's own, just not with the information that was there. -- Dbroadwell 06:20, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think a distinction needs to be made between distributed systems, w.r.t. computing, and distributed systems w.r.t systems theory (i.e. a system with an infinite number of state variables). I'm not an expert on the subject, but these are completely distinct topics.--PerfectZero 06:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the link from Fallacies of Distributed Computing to Distributed Programming that was redirecting to Distributed Computing. The merge described above appears to be complete, except for these sorts of loose ends. Philomathoholic 08:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

does this go to supercomputers?
Just a bit of stuff from the outline that User:raul654 gave. I'm thinking it should go into supercomputers untill i fill it in a bot mroe ... -- Dbroadwell 06:20, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

History of supercomputing
mention Illiac

SISD
single instruction stream, single data stream

MISD
multiple instruction stream, single data stream

SIMD
single instruction, multiple data

MIMD
multiple instruction, multiple data

Tanembaum
As stated by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, "Distributed systems need radically different software than centralized systems do."
 * Heh, this quote made me register only to talk about it. Wouldn't that "radically different" thing be because of the way the software is made? If Tanenbaum meant all the kinds of software need to be developed in radically different way than in centralized systems, I'd say he's plain wrong. Take a multilayered model of developing softwares. Higher layers communicate with lower layers with a common language or objects. In that way distributing tasks between computers would be just a matter of distributing more objects. You just need to develop good layers. Well, this is also a model that solves a whole lot more problems that that, but it's just an example. --Renrutal 08:49, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

definition mixup
The article parallel computing defines distributed computing as one of its methods. The far-reaching analogies in this article about the world wide web and whatnot sound really off-key. It looks like a bunch of duplicated, less than coherent, mess. --Joy [shallot]   00:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I removed the world wide web section, because:
 * The section itself even mentioned it: it is "not distributed" computing. It described how computers communicate with servers, in order to get a webpage. No computation as described in the main article is involved in this process.
 * It was poorly written
 * Addressed the reader ("as you are reading a webpage")
 * Parts repeated ("as you are browsing the web"), bad explanations. It just sums up parts of the web that are 'distributed systems'.
 * Irrelevant information, EVEN for the explanation of 'distributed systems' in the WWW, like proxy servers (which are serial not parallel).
 * SuperMidget 17:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Unbounded nondeterminism misplaced?
One of the challenges listed in the Openness section does not seem to be associated with openness. Unbounded nondeterminism is a problem associated with some protocols (most notably contention protocols) and with some levels of unreliability (with high enough reliability the time it takes to complete an operation need not be unbounded). But it does not seem to be related to the publishing of complete and neutral component interface specifications (a reasonable definition of openness). However, I am prepared to be convinced otherwise! Tim Watson 13:01, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your comment. I have clariied the text.  See what you think.--Carl Hewitt 15:57, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Carl. It's clear that the definition of open systems is still evolving. I remember when it meant UNIX or the OSI 7-layer model! Tim Watson 16:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Web services reference: just a marketing claim?
I feel that the claim that Web services is the dominant technology is more like a marketing claim for them than truly reflecting the situation, e.g. neither the SETI@home project nor Linux clusters use that technology.

--David Woolley 12:47, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

 * These days everybody is developing Web Services including distributed computing systems on Linux. Some of the older systems such as SETI do not (yet).--Carl Hewitt 21:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the goal statement is wrong in a number of areas.

1) The main goal is not to connect users in a 'transparent' way. This is a goal of one type of distributed system, the remote procedure call (RPC) [1], not distributed systems in general. For example, Java's RMI and Jini system believe the opposite, that the distributed system should not be transparent to users [2].

2) Distributed systems are not 'open' because the protocols they use are different for different types of distributed systems. For example, DCOM doesn't communicate with Jini. What they do provide, however, is a standard communication protocol. This is not the same as open.

3) The statement 'Today Web Services provide the standard protocols for connecting distributed systems' is simply not true. Firstly, web services are not a protocol, they are a data representation standard or an implementation of XML for data transmission. A web service is simply a service that accepts XML data in some format or another. The actual protocol is normally HTTP but it can, and does, run over many other protocols. Still, generally speaking today web services run over HTTP and so the actual protocol in that instance is HTTP, not 'web services'. This is pure meaningless marketing hype.

Secondly there is no single defined web services standard in that there are many different implementations, such as REST (of which there could be an infinate number of formats), SOAP (various versions), and various vendor extensions.

In terms of dominant protocol, that has to be HTTP.

[1] Birrell, A.D. & Nelson, B.J. "Implementing Remote Procedure Calls." ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2, 1 (February 1984): 39-59.

[2] Waldo, J., Wyant G., Wollrath, A. & Kendall, S. "A Note on Distributed Computing." Technical report, SMLI TR-94-29, November 1994.

List of researchers not appropriate
Especially given that this is a amaster topic for many different sorts of distributed computing, I feel that a fair list of researchers would run into thousands, which would be unreasonable for inclusion in this article. I feel the current list is somewhat arbitrary, especially as, of the initial four, one isn't present at all, and two others are stub articles, with, in once case, this article being the only substantive referer and in the other case, there being only one other referring article.

--David Woolley 18:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I concur.--Carl Hewitt 19:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup Intro
I wrote a new intro and removed the quote from Tanenbaum as it did not contribute anything useful to the topic. This article is in dismal shape. Types of processors should not be included such as SISD, SIMD, MISD, MIMD. If you want to mention this, you could mention the types of systems that can be used in distributed networks and how smaller parallel computers and even clusters can be connected together to make a distributed environment. But as it is now, it doesn't belong.

The Goal section is ambiguous. The last line about web services is out of place. Why should we point that out versus other software technologies? Move it to the section just below it about examples.

The Openness section seems like it's taken from a specific product with someone pushing it. Just an impression mind you.

Multiprocessor section doesn't add anything useful. It's off-topic and doesn't belong here. The following section is ok though about multicomputer systems and should maybe highlighted or expanded.

The architechture and concurrency section seems good to me as well, but there's something about the formatting that is not appealing.

--Budd (Anon) Feb 17, 2006

 * I agree with much of what you say about the article in general but the new introduction is too wordy and too specific. The previous intro described distributed computing as the coordinated use of physically separate computers. This seems to be a very good definition. Distributed computing includes any coherent system that uses a network of computers, the computers don't have to be remote, the protocols don't have to apply to a range of hardware and the code and information doesn't have to be portable. What ties the subject together is the common set of problems and techniques: communication between components, managing state, naming and locating, synchronisation, fault tolerance etc.. These topics apply just as well to a vehicle performance management system as they do to SETI@home or a CORBA-based distributed system for business. Tim Watson 07:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

A "List of Problems in Distributed Computing"
I am interested in helping to add a section on "Problems in Distributed Computing" such as "consensus," "mutual exclusion," "leader election," "dining philosophers" and so on--essentially, the classic problems studied researchers in distributed algorithms. These are precisly-defined problems in the literature, which have a variety of solutions (or lack them!) depending on the specific model of distributed computing that is chosen.

Trying a few, "dining philosophers" is the only one of these which already has a page on wikipedia.

Possibly each problem could merit its own page; or perhaps it would be better to collect them all on a page called "Problems in Distributed Computing."

Looking for similar collections for hints how to organize this, I see that there is a "List of complexity classes." A "List of Problems in Distributed Computing" could be considered to have a similar breadth and depth. There is a "List of NP-complete problems," but apparently no other list of sequential algorithmic problems.

Do others agree that this content merits a "List" of pages? Or should it be localized on one page for now?

I can write some content for this collection, but I'm by no means an expert. I hope others will be interested in contributing.

Is this a good idea? Any suggestions? Ezrakilty 18:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * A new single section that summarizes and then links to the separate pages on each of those algorithmic problems seems like a good idea. -- Bovineone 18:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Spammy lists
There have been a lot of lists of links created in both the Distributed computing and Grid computing articles. I originally added the because those lists were beginning to over-power the main content of the articles. Perhaps some of them can be moved to new articles so that people will be encouraged to add them there instead of in the main articles? Although this may be bordering on what wikipedia is not, it may still be possible to create a "List of distributed computing journals" and "List of distributed computing organizations" or a "List of distributed computing software" to complement the existing List of distributed computing publications and List of distributed computing projects? -- Bovineone 17:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Perhaps we could just link to the dmoz directories of distributed computing journals, conferences, projects, and general distributed computing links. The List of distributed computing projects primarily lists projects about which there is a Wikipedia entry. This (kind of) makes sense, since the Wikipedia links won't appear in something like dmoz. But assembling a list of purely external links seems like it would be contrary to what wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not a directory. Dmoz is a directory, so why not make use of it? --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Shared computing
How is this different? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 | T | C | @ 00:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Distributed computing in general is just computation using multiple computers (possibly even dedicated clusters that do not need to "share" their use with other workloads). Shared computing is a subset of distributed computing where cycle stealing or idle cycles only are used, usually by people volunteering their PCs. -- Bovineone 04:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal
See the discussion in Distributed programming. I think the two articles should be merged. Hervegirod 09:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

This is done now. All the deleted text is in the Distributed computing article, may need to be cleaned up a bit Hervegirod 20:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Where the CSP and web-service models??
Communicating_Sequential_Processes is the more cited "abstract model" for concurrence on Distr. Comp. CSP not cited on the article!

... Web Service Architecture (see on W3C) is the "top model" today, and it not have a section on the article.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.43.55.80 (talk • contribs).

 * If you feel there should be more discussions of CSP and WSA then by all means add them (with references please). Wikipedia is open to everyone for editing. --Allan McInnes (talk) 04:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Other examples... ?
distributed com m uting? --Renice 16:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction
The article first states that the World Wide Web is not a distributed computing system, then at the end of the article that it is one example of distributed computing system. --Edcolins 10:33, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * At the end it says "An example of a distributed system is the World Wide Web". A distributed system is not the same as distributed computing. The article could make a clearer distinction and have a section titled "Distributed systems". Or maybe Distributed system should get its own article again instead of redirecting here. PrimeHunter 16:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I made a quick fix to avoid readers thinking there is a contradiction, but distributed systems should be introduced better. PrimeHunter 16:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article confuses what is sometimes called Distributed Systems and what is sometimes called Distributed Computing. Having a "Distributed Systems" section is not right; it should be the other way around since distributed computing is more specific than distributed systems.  Or as you suggest they should be split into separate articles. --Nethgirb 23:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think an article can have a section for a more general concept, e.g. if the specific article concept is more known/notable than the general, but I'm not judging this case, and I don't expect to work on it. PrimeHunter 13:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Drawbacks
If you want drawbacks, I've got tons. Someone will have to search for references though. So I'll just list them here.

 * Reliability. There is no guarantee that communication will arrive at another node in a timely fashion.  You can't even be sure that something happened at all.  This is a common problem.  TCP/IP must deal with this too.

 * Security. Because all nodes usually use a public network for communication, there is the risk of attempted unauthorized access.

 * Multiple Platforms. Althought there is no requirement for multiple platforms in general, there are many applications that require it such as web browsing.  Getting all platforms to have its respective version of the software takes a lot of work.  Getting them all to give the proper results is even more problematic.  Then there's maintaining all those different versions of the software.

 * Coordination. All distributed environments must be coordinated.  Much like a workplace, you can't have everyone in one big room haphazardly running around.  Everyone must have its task.  Same goes for nodes in a distributed environment.  There needs to be a way to identify nodes, add nodes, remove them, and change what task they are doing all while distributed computing is going on.

 * Protocol. From within a programming language, you can send data using language features such as objects, structures or messages.  In a distributed environment, everything you send to other nodes must be formatted in a way that the receiving end can make out what it is.  In short, everything that goes out on the wire must be made similar to being persistant.  But instead of saving and loading from disk, it is sent out and received through the communication channel.

There's a lot more, but those are the main ones. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 142.167.85.107 (talk) 07:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

All those issues are effectively dealt by literally hundreds of scientists. Also, coordination is NOT needed - it depends on the needs. Szopen 12:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Volunteer Computing
The long paragraph under "Drawbacks and Disadvantages" that begins, "Distributed computing projects may generate data that is proprietary to private industry" is actually referring, I think, to the phenomenon of [Volunteer computing] which is a specific use of distributed computing that harnesses the computing resources of volunteers, and which already has its own page. The comments in that paragraph do not apply to distributed computing as such, which is a technical subject and which need not (and often does not) have any of the proprietary questions that the paragraph raises.

I propose that this paragraph be moved to a "Drawbacks and Disadvantages" section on the Volunteer computing page. Perhaps explicit mention of the relationship between the two topics should be made on the Distributed computing page.

I notice that in some other ways, the notion of volunteer computing is being confused with distributed computing here. For example, the intro mentions BOINC, a framework for building volunteer-computing systems, as an example of distributed computing, without mentioning the special nature of projects such as BOINC. Also, the "Examples" section describes only large-scale volunteer computing projects. Although it does say that "many are run on a volunteer basis" it gives the impression that all or almost all distributed computation is of this sort, which is not true.

I can try to flesh out the "Examples" section and otherwise clarify this distinction. Ezrakilty 11:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Drawbacks
I'm seconding the comment above.

In reviewing the drawbacks section of this document, the possible failings of projects that use volunteer computing networks seems quite out of place. All projects have the possibility of being poorly planned, having outcomes that are not useful, of wasting time and money, etc, etc. Why should distributed computing be exceptional in this way? I would remove the discussion, or link it to a discussion on SETI@home, etc.

Quite confuse on distirbuted system
Can any one give real time instance of distirbuted system? Regards, Balaji.K.srinivas —Preceding unsigned comment added by KJBalaji (talk • contribs) 00:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Just read the article and look at the recommended sites. -- Statsone  04:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

DSM vs Space-based
I am quite confused by definition of "space-bsaed" computing. I was teached that tuple spaces are just one of example of distributed shared memory paradigm. Can someone explain, why space-based is different from distributed shared memory and why space-based is used here instead of DSM? Szopen (talk) 13:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

distrbuted computind
what is meant by distributed computing ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.172.98 (talk) 11:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Structure and missing topics
I think that this article fails to give a coherent view of the broad field of distributed computing. I like the lead paragraphs, but the rest of the article seems to present somewhat random pieces of information in no particular order. A lot of emphasis is on software engineering aspects and on some fairly specific applications; the theoretical foundations of the field are not covered at all. I wonder if we could try to use a roughly similar structure as what we have in Parallel computing? In practice, it might be something like the following: What do you think? — Miym (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Background, including the theoretical foundations of the field. Here we would refer to articles such as Distributed algorithms, Fault-tolerance, Consensus (computer science), etc. List of important publications in computer science and Dijkstra Prize might give some more ideas, as well as textbooks such as Lynch: Distributed Algorithms, and CFPs like  . Topics such as Routing and Broadcasting (computing) might be relevant as well. We can also discuss in more detail how distributed computing is related to parallel computing, concurrent computing, computer networks, etc.
 * 2) Hardware. Here we might refer to articles such as Computer networks, Cluster computing, Grid computing, etc.
 * 3) Software. Here we would cover issues related to software architectures, software engineering, programming languages, etc. Fallacies of Distributed Computing would belong here, too.
 * 4) Applications. Here we would refer to List of distributed computing projects. But we could mention many other applications, too. Some random examples of distributed systems (with non-trivial computational challenges) that we might mention include Internet, Peer-to-peer network, Cellular network, and Wireless sensor network.
 * 5) History. History of computing, History of the Internet, etc. might be good places to start. Perhaps we could also pick some prominent people from Category:Researchers in distributed computing and describe their work.

 * You refer to Peer-to-peer network but currently that is a redirect to Peer-to-peer, which is an article about ... something unclear. Witness the constant rewriting of its lead and proposals on Talk:Peer-to-peer to move the article to a more descriptive title so that a disambiguation page can occupy the name.  You may find relevant content in other articles listed on Peer-to-peer (disambiguation). --Una Smith (talk) 02:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I did some partial re-writing. Comments and improvements are welcome. (And if your favourite piece of text was deleted in the process, feel free to put it back – no offence meant.) — Miym (talk) 13:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

supercomputers
This article is in desperate need of at least a mention of supercomputers. A comparison of pros and cons would be sweet, ditto ecological and economical aspects. --193.166.137.75 (talk) 09:04, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

What is parallel computing?
The section "Parallel or distributed computing?" indicates that the main distinction between "parallel" and "distributed" systems is that in parallel computing "all processors have access to a shared memory". However, the parallel computing article says that "main memory in a parallel computer is either shared memory ... or distributed memory". And other articles such as Bulk synchronous parallel and Message Passing Interface refer to "parallel computing" instead of "distributed" although they mainly relate to distributed memory systems. This is confusing for readers.

I guess that the computing literature uses the terms inconsistently. If so, Wikipedia needs to be less dogmatic. And in any case the articles need to be consistent with one another. JonH (talk) 22:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for raising this issue. The terminological confusion is unfortunate. I tried to make it explicit that there is a lot of confusion by writing that "Parallel computing may be seen as a particular tightly-coupled form of distributed computing, and distributed computing may be seen as a loosely-coupled form of parallel computing." Perhaps it should be made even more clear that all of the following classifications are possible:
 * Distributed computing is a form of parallel computing
 * Parallel computing is a form of distributed computing
 * Parallel computing and distributed computing are two different forms of computing
 * And naturally there is the additional confusion created by the term "concurrent computing", and also the problem that typical uses of the terms "parallel algorithms" and "parallel computing" are not 100% compatible with each other. Anyway, we have to somehow define what is the scope of the article distributed computing, so we must give at least some kind of definitions of the terms that we use here. I suggest that we wait a bit until this article is more complete and stable and we have more references, in particular, references that support the definitions that we have here. After that, we can try to see if other articles like distributed algorithm, parallel computing, etc. need to be edited in order to make Wikipedia more internally consistent. — Miym (talk) 00:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on this, Miym, but the parallel computing article (which is a featured article because I took time and wrote it carefully to make sure it's accurate) and other articles are correct, and this article is wrong. Parallel computing encompass all levels of parallelism: bit level, instruction level, multicore, multiprocessor, clusters, MPPs, and grid computing. I don't have my copy of Patterson and Hennessey handy, but distributed computing refers to computing on processors in physically distributed places. (E.g, Clusters, MPPs, and grids). Distributed computing is a subset of parallel computing; parallel computing is *not* a form of distributed computing. Distributed computing also includes shared memory architectures, such vector machines. This article needs to be changed because it's factually incorrect. Raul654 (talk) 14:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the feedback. Did you have a look at the section "Introduction" and the textbook references in that section? Do you disagree with those books, or do you think that I have interpreted those incorrectly?

 * Of course you are free to edit this article, in particular if you spot a mistake. But I would like to see an article that is sufficiently broad to cover the research topics that seem to be in the core of the subfield of computer science that is commonly known as "distributed computing", i.e., topics that are covered in conferences such as PODC and DISC (Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing and International Symposium on Distributed Computing). Systems such as "clusters, MPPs and grids" are not particularly central from this perspective; there is much more in distributed computing than just high-performance computation. — Miym (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

SOA article
The SOA article seems to say that "older" DC was SOA's precursor. In messaging? Then it goes on to blather about Web 2.0 with no regard for corporate entities and breezes over security in SOA. What company using Oracle SOA ever used DC ? G. Robert Shiplett 13:03, 8 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grshiplett (talk • contribs)

DC programming languages
The Oz programming language is moving to be a DC language. There had been HP Distributed Smalltalk for CORBA messaging but Smalltalk was not a language for distributed programming. Which languages were and where were they used with a commercial success? G. Robert Shiplett 13:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grshiplett (talk • contribs)

Client-Server Architecture
If there's a program running on one computer talking to a program running on a different computer (e.g. ping), is this distributed computing?

If there are many clients running on different computers all talking to one server (e.g. FTP), is this distributed computing?

If there are many clients running on different computers all talking to one server at a time but switching between different servers (e.g. WWW), is this distributed computing?

Is there any case where the client-server architecture on its own (e.g. not including "n-tier", load balancing, parallel processing or any other "more complex than just client-server" scheme) constitutes distributed computing?

In my opinion, a client-server architecture does not constitute distributed computing and should be removed from the list of architectures.

BrendanTrotter (talk) 06:42, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Why does the first sentence of the Introduction contain the word gay?
Why does the first sentence of the Introduction contain the word gay?

The word distributed in terms such as "distributed system", "distributed programming", and "distributed algorithm" originally referred to computer networks where individual computers were physically gay distributed within some geographical area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.79.147 (talk) 19:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

move page to distributed system
I think distributed system is a more appropriate choice for the main article. The first two sentences make it clear why: "distributed computing" is currently defined in terms of "distributed system", not the other way around!

If the consensus agrees, I will make a move request. Caleb Stanford (talk) 06:37, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

 * @Caleb Stanford I had the same thought; distributed computing refers to using distributed systems to solve computational problems. -- Nczempin (talk) 10:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * So since the discussion was closed, maybe we should improve the article on distributed computing, maybe incorporate the acm viewpoint and make the distinction between distributed systems and [the two meanings of, or should the second be "d. computation"?] d.c. clearer? -- Nczempin (talk) 12:55, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 8 December 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Minimal participation. (non-admin closure) NasssaNsertalk 09:01, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Distributed computing → Distributed system – "Distributed system" is a better choice for the main article and more consistent with modern usage. The first two sentences make it clear why: "distributed computing" is currently defined in terms of "distributed system", not the other way around! Caleb Stanford (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 20:18, 16 December 2022 (UTC) — Relisting.  echidnaLives  -  talk  -  edits  04:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Unsure. Both terms track each other closely in this Ngram. And there are still lots of books about distributed computing as there are about distributed system. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind distributed computing as the title but it probably requires a lead rewrite; the current lead is about distributed systems. Caleb Stanford (talk) 22:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

 * @Caleb Stanford Distributed computing refers to the use of distributed systems to perform computational tasks. It involves dividing a computational problem into smaller tasks, which can be solved concurrently by multiple computers that communicate with each other over a network. I would say that is how the term is primarily used in the field. However, distributed computing could also be interpreted as "doing anything with computers that is distributed". however in cs courses the subject is usually called distributed systems. that said, the ACM, in its CS curriculum guidelines, has introduced a piece of the "body of knowledge" called "Parallel and Distributed Computing" and put Distributed Systems under it (but has not provided a term that combines P&D). So perhaps the field that concentrates on CPU bound topics should be "distributed computation"? -- Nczempin (talk) 11:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

title: Talk:Distributed computing


text:
Elliot N. Dorff

Elliot N. Dorff (born 24 June 1943) is an American Conservative rabbi. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Distinguished Professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in California (where he is also rector), author and a bio-ethicist.

Dorff is an expert in the philosophy of Conservative Judaism, bioethics, and acknowledged within the Conservative community as an expert decisor of Jewish law. Dorff was ordained as a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1970. He earned his BA and PhD in philosophy from Columbia University in 1971. He has been awarded four honorary doctoral degrees—from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Gratz College, Hebrew Union College, and American Jewish University—and he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Journal of Law and Religion.

Dorff is the chairman of the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and has written many responsa on various aspects of Jewish law and philosophy.

Philosophy of religion
Among other topics, Dorff is interested in Jewish philosophy, especially epistemology. As a philosopher, Dorff asks about the difference between belief and knowledge. Given the philosophical definition that knowledge differs from belief (knowledge is often defined as a justified, true belief), Dorff's works explicitly analyze epistemological questions. His philosophy of religion, as illustrated especially in his book Knowing God: Jewish Journeys to the Unknowable, stems from the analytic tradition in philosophy, with careful attention to the grounds of justified belief. He claims, however, that the Jewish tradition did not base its belief in God primarily on intellectual activity because Judaism is theistic, believing in a personal God: just as we do not come to know people through creating proofs of their existence, so too that has not been the primary way in which Jews have come to know God. Instead, he writes, to know people we talk with them and do things with them, and the same is true for how we come to know God: We talk to God through prayer; God talks to us through revelation; we do things with God through following God's commandments; and God does things with us by acting in history. In Knowing God there is a chapter on each of those aspects of the interaction that Dorff says gives us knowledge of God.

In his book Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants, Dorff creates and then explains a chart of various views of revelation and Jewish law, including the mainstream Orthodox approach, four Conservative approaches, and the Reform approach. In it he describes himself as "Conservative III," according to which revelation holds no content in of itself; rather, God inspired people with His presence by coming into contact with them. In this view the Bible is a human response to our ancestors' encounters with God, and revelation continues each time we study and reinterpret Jewish classical texts.

Bioethics
In the spring of 1993, Dorff served on the ethics committee of Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force for her 1993 health care plan, and in March 1997 and May 1999, he, along with other rabbis, testified on behalf of the Jewish tradition on the subjects of human cloning and stem cell research before President Bill Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission. In 1999–2000, he served on the U.S. Surgeon General's Task Force to create a Call to Action for responsible sexual behavior to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and between 2000 and 2002 he served on the National Human Resources Protections Advisory Commission, charged with reviewing and revising the federal guidelines on research on human beings. He is now on the California Ethics Advisory Commission for embryonic stem cell research done within the state and his perspective has been sought on this topic at a national level.

Dorff is a fellow of the Hastings Center, a research institution that studies issues in bioethics. His book on Jewish medical ethics is Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics.

Other areas of ethics
Dorff has co-edited two anthologies with religion professor Louis E. Newman, formerly of Carleton College and now of Stanford University—namely, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader and Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader, both published by Oxford University Press. In addition, he has written books on social ethics To Do the Right and the Good, and The Way into Tikkun Olam: (Repairing the World) and personal ethics Love Your Neighbor and Yourself. His books on social ethics include chapters on interfaith relations, pluralism within the Jewish community, poverty, justice, war, and communal forgiveness. His book on personal ethics includes chapters on privacy, sexual ethics, family violence, how we talk to and about each other, parents and children, and hope. He has also co-edited with Emory University Professor Jonathan Crane The Oxford Handbook on Jewish Ethics and Morality.

In addition to these chapters on specific areas of ethics, Dorff has written extensively on issues in ethical theory—in particular, the relationships between religion and ethics and between Jewish law and ethics.

Jewish law
Dorff has written about the theory of Jewish law and has also written rabbinic rulings (teshuvot) on a number of issues in Jewish law. In his book The Unfolding Tradition, he describes and analyzes fifteen theories of Jewish law within the Conservative Movement with comparisons to theories on the right in Orthodoxy and on the left in Reform Judaism and yet further left. He articulates his own theory of Jewish law as a living, organic system in his book For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law. In addition to describing how he understands Jewish law as being like a human being with a body (=the body of Jewish law, the corpus juris) and soul (=the Covenant between God and the Jewish People), he has specific chapters on the interaction between Jewish law and morality, theology, and custom, followed by some comparisons to the right and left of his approach and some specific examples of his own rabbinic rulings that illustrate his theory.

Communal activities
In Los Angeles, Dorff is a member of the Board of Jewish Family Service and has served as its president (2004–2006). From 2008 to 2016 he was a member of the Board of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation Council, co-chairing its task force on Serving the Vulnerable. Since the 1980s he has been a member of the Ethics Committees of UCLA Medical Center and the Jewish Homes for the Aging. He is co-chairman of the "Priest-Rabbi Dialogue" sponsored by the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, and he is the former Treasurer and President and current Board member of the Academy of Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies. He has been Secretary of the Board of the Faithtrust Institute, dedicated to stopping violence against women and children. He is a past president of three academic societies: The Jewish Law Association, The Jewish Philosophical Association, and the Society for Jewish Ethics and Honorary President of the Jewish Law Association between 2012 and 2016.

Scholarship
Dorff has published fourteen books and over 200 articles on Jewish thought, law, and ethics, and he has edited or co-edited another fourteen books on those topics. His books relevant to Jewish law include: A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law (with Arthur Rosett), The Unfolding Tradition: Philosophies of Jewish Law, and For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law. In addition he has written about 20 rabbinic rulings for the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards on such subjects as "Donations of Ill-Gotten Gain," "Violent and Defamatory Video Games," and “Providing References for Schools or Jobs,” as well as many topics in medical ethics.

Responsa
On December 6, 2006, the law committee accepted a paper by Rabbis Elliot Dorff, Daniel Nevins and Avram Reisner on same-sex marriage and ordination of homosexual rabbis, while it upheld the biblical prohibition on male intercourse. In addition, Dorff has written responsa adopted by the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards on these and other topics: end-of-life medical issues; artificial insemination, egg donation, and adoption; assisted suicide; donations of ill-gotten gain; and violent or defamatory video games.

Awards
1965-1971: Danforth Foundation Fellowship 2006: Lifetime Achievement Award of the Journal of Law and Religion.
 * 2002-2003: National Jewish Book Award for To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Elliot N. Dorff


text:
Scrollbar

A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction (up, down, left, or right) on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the content can be viewed, even if only a fraction of the content can be seen on a device's screen at one time. It offers a solution to the problem of navigation to a known or unknown location within a two-dimensional information space. It was also known as a handle in the very first GUIs. They are present in a wide range of electronic devices including computers, graphing calculators, mobile phones, and portable media players. The user interacts with the scrollbar elements using some method of direct action, the scrollbar translates that action into scrolling commands, and the user receives feedback through a visual updating of both the scrollbar elements and the scrolled content.

Although scrollbar designs differ throughout their history, they usually appear on one or two sides of the viewing area as long rectangular areas containing a bar (or thumb) that can be dragged along a trough (or track) to move the body of the document. This can be placed vertically, horizontally, or both in the window depending on which direction the content extends past its boundaries. Two arrows are often included on either end of the thumb or trough for more precise adjustments. The "thumb" has different names in different environments: on the Mac OS X 10.4 it is called a "scroller"; on the Java platform it is called "thumb" or "knob"; Microsoft's .NET documentation refers to it as "scroll box" or "scroll thumb"; in other environments it is called "elevator", "quint", "puck", "wiper" or "grip"; in certain environments where browsers use agnostic language to the scrollbar terminology, the thumb is referred to as the 'pea' for vertical movement of the bar and still use 'puck' for horizontal movement.

Additional functions may be found, such as zooming in/out or various application-specific tools. Depending on the GUI, the size of the thumb can be fixed or variable in size; in the later case of proportional thumbs, its length would indicate the size of the window in relation to the size of the whole document, indicated by the full track. While proportional thumbs were available in several GUIs, including GEM, AmigaOS and PC/GEOS, even in the mid 1980s, Microsoft did not implement them until Windows 95. A proportional thumb that completely fills the trough indicates that the entire document is being viewed, at which point the scrollbar may temporarily become hidden. The proportional thumb can also sometimes be adjusted by dragging its ends, such as in Sony Vegas, a non-linear video editing software package. In this case it would adjust both the position and the zooming of the document, where the size of the thumb represents the degree of zooming applied.

A scrollbar should be distinguished from a slider which is another visually similar yet functionally different object. The slider is used to change values, but does not change the display or move the area that is shown as a scrollbar does.

History and progression
In 1974, moving the cursor to the left margin while using Bravo changed its shape to a double-headed arrow to allow for scrolling. Pressing the left or top red button scrolled the content up, and the line next to the cursor went to the top of the window. Pressing the right or bottom blue button scrolled the content down, and the line at the top of the window went down to the cursor. Holding down the middle yellow button changed the cursor to a thumb, allowing for jumping to that percentage of the document with an indicator of current placement.

In 1977, Smalltalk included a stable scrollbar on the left side of the focus window. Clicking at the right half of the scrollbar moved the content up, and the left half moved the content down. The center thumb of the bar could be dragged smoothly and showed the percentage of the content visible; the first proportional scroll bar.

In 1980, Interlisp had a scrollbar that appeared on the left side of the window as the cursor moved towards the left. The bar's shaded thumb showed the percentage of content visible and was controlled by the middle button. The left button scrolled up to move the selected position to the top edge of the window, and the right button scrolled down to move the top edge of the window to the selected position.

Between 1981 and 1982, the Xerox Star moved the scrollbar to the right to get it out of the way and reduce visual clutter. Scroll arrows pointed inwards in the direction the content would move based on user studies, and + and – buttons allowed for scrolling by pages. The thumb was a fixed size diamond, independent of how much of document is visible. Clicking in the thumb elevator region would jump to that part of document.

In 1983, the Apple Lisa had arrows pointing up and down, page buttons, and a fixed size thumb.

In 1984, the Macintosh had a light gray rectangle with a "scroll box" thumb, "gray area" track, and arrows pointing in opposite directions towards the content that would be exposed when the respective arrow was pressed. Arrows would scroll a single unit upon one click or auto repeat upon continuous press. Page buttons were removed, and the elevator track could be clicked in instead to move to the next section. Upon pressing the thumb, dragging it would bring it to that particular point unless movement was made far out of the scrollbar before release, aborting the action. An empty scrollbar was displayed when a window was not in focus or if the entire document was visible within the window.

In 1985, GEM used a proportionally-sized "scroll box" thumb, but otherwise operated identically to the Macintosh. The net result was a modern scrollbar that looked and felt no different from the scrollbar in Windows today. GEM allowed the mouse to be moved far away from the scrollbar after clicking and holding, to reduce hand-eye coordination problems. AmigaOS followed later in the year, also with proportionally-sized scroll boxes.

Also in 1985, Viewpoint used the right button to move content by percent or by window rather than by page.

In 1988, Open Look created an elevator thumb with arrow keys directly on it. Clicking on the track moved by pages, and auto repeat would push the pointer along. Cable anchors were placed at the beginning and end of the document, and the center of the elevator could be dragged.

In 1989, NeXT moved the scrollbar back to the left side of the window. The thumb was proportionally sized with arrows together at the bottom of the bar. Actions auto repeated, and the alt-key would move content by window. The thumb could be dragged, and using the alt-key while dragging would slow its movement.

In 1997, the PalmPilot included a conventional scrollbar where text extended past screen boundaries with use of both a draggable thumb and arrows that could be tapped with a stylus. It also had two physical buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down respectively.

In 2001, Mac OS X 10.0 used a proportional thumb and moved both arrow buttons to the bottom of the bar.

In 2007, the iPhone and iOS included a regular scrollbar in the web browser and other applications, though it was only for output and could not be interacted with. In contacts, a scrollbar of letters was provided to jump through content.

In 2011, Mac OS X 10.7 removed the buttons from the end of the bar and was designed to look more like the iOS scrollbar. With the same release of Mac OS X 10.7, Apple introduced "natural scrolling," which means that the screen moves in the same direction as the user's fingers are moving when they use the two finger scroll gesture. If the user's fingers move up the trackpad, the content on the page goes up, allowing the user to read content further down the page, and vice versa.

In the 2015 version of Microsoft Word for Macs, disappearing scrollbars were introduced. The placement within a document was not longer visible when the mouse was outside the bar area even if the window in question was in focus. The purpose of this change was to conform to Macs’ standard design practices of hiding the scrollbar when it is not immediately needed for information hierarchical purposes.

Thumb dragging
Dragging the thumb is historically the traditional way of manipulating a scrollbar. By moving the cursor over to the thumb on the screen and then pressing and holding, the thumb can be dragged. This is often done using either a trackpad or the left click button on a conventional mouse or touchpad. Moving the cursor while pressing down moves the scrollbar's thumb to see different sections of the page. On applications native to OS X 10.11 (and some previous OS X versions), scrollbars do not show up on the user interface until the user uses another scrolling technique, such as the two-finger scroll or using the arrow keys. Therefore, the user must scroll using one of these methods first, and then move their cursor over to the thumb, wherever it appears.

On Microsoft Windows, moving the mouse away too far from the thumb while dragging it will reset the scrolling position to prior.

Scroll wheel
A scroll wheel on a conventional mouse may also be used. Moving the wheel in a desired direction moves the content in the same direction. Most mice contain scroll wheels that only scroll up and down, but some mice contain scroll wheels that allow the user to scroll in any direction (up, down, left or right), including diagonal directions. While scrolling up and down, the direction in which the page scrolls in response to the direction that the user scrolls the scroll wheel can differ depending on the computer's scrolling settings.

Arrow keys
The arrow buttons on the keyboard may be clicked to scroll up, down, left, or right on a page. This scrolling technique usually results in the screen scrolling very slowly in comparison to the other scrolling techniques. Clicking the arrow buttons would result in the page continuing to scroll until one of the scroll limits has been reached.

Clicking the trough
The trough above or below the thumb can be clicked in order to immediately jump to that point on the page, or page-by-page for multipage content. After clicking the trough, scrolling automatically begins and then stop once the thumb has reached the position of the mouse pointer. This scrolling technique is faster than others and is best used when the user has to scroll through a lot of content at once, or when the user knows where exactly on a page they need to scroll to.

On-screen arrow buttons
Many applications, such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, contain scrollbars with on screen directional arrows for purposes of scrolling. Clicking on the arrows scrolls a small amount of the content, often single lines, at a time, and pressing and holding on them with the cursor continuously scrolls over more area on the page until released. Sometimes, both arrow buttons appear next to each other for quick, precise manipulation without having to drag the thumb or move the mouse great distances to the other arrow (this was offered as an option in Mac OS 8.5); one of them may also be duplicated so as to show at both ends of the bar, providing familiarity for those used to both separate and adjacent buttons. These arrow buttons existed until Mac OS X 10.7 where they were dropped in favor of trackpad gestures and scroll-wheel mice.

In BeOS, the on-screen scrolling buttons for both directions appear on both ends of the scroll bar. In several Microsoft Office programs, the additional buttons and  can be used for per-page navigation.

Different mouse buttons
Another scrolling technique with scrollbars is to look at which mouse button was pressed. For instance, a left-click on the down arrow might cause the window to scroll down, while a right click in the same place would scroll up (e.g. RISC OS), or the middle button could be used to place the thumb precisely. This form requires less fine motor skills, although it requires a multi-button mouse, and possibly a greater degree of GUI literacy.

Windows touchpad
Additionally, some Windows-enabled machines have a scrolling mechanism on the side of their touchpad, as shown in the picture. To use this mechanism, a finger is placed on the scroll area and moved up and down or left and right in order to scroll around the page. Again, depending on the computer's scrolling settings, moving the finger in certain directions along these scrolling areas could result in different corresponding scrolling directions.

Mac trackpad
A more modern scrolling technique is using the two-finger scroll on a Mac trackpad. In this technique, the tips of two fingers from the same hand are placed on the surface of the trackpad and moved accordingly. If the user has their trackpad scrolling direction set to "natural," moving their two fingers toward the top of the trackpad will cause the page to scroll up towards the top of the page; conversely, moving their fingers toward the bottom of the trackpad will cause the page to scroll down towards the bottom. If the user "flicks" their fingers by moving their two fingers very quickly across the trackpad and then releasing their fingers, the page will continue to scroll in the direction in which they flicked until it eventually slows down and stops, either because one of the scroll limits is reached or because the scroll speed slows down so much that it eventually simply stops. This feature is called inertia.

Alternative designs
Many variations on the traditional scrollbar design and usage have been proposed or implemented. To avoid limiting window visibility with scrollbars while still allowing for functionality, the use of a software tether (thin line) associated with movement of the mouse pointer around the tether has been proposed. Similarly, the scrollbar can be directly placed within the content where it is useful, both decreasing space used and reducing required pointer movements.

The inclusion of visual and operational clues within the scrollbar display area can indicate which directions allow for scrolling movement as well as which interactions with the scrollbar are available. This can be a blank field to signal a list's end, disabling of scrolling buttons, and color changes in the scrollbar.

Some scrollbars include a visual position indicator to help determine where the scrolling action has gone or will go to in the content. For multipage content, an indicator of the current page number vs the total page number can be included next to the thumb as scrolling occurs, and wider scrollbars can include an overview of the entire page. In scrollbars like those used in phone contact lists made up of the letters of the alphabet, the letter corresponding to the current area can be displayed larger or highlighted in some way. While these are stable and provided by the application, some applications and search engines allow for the use of relevance markers provided or added by the user. These can be strictly visual or can automatically stop action within the scrollbar once each marker is reached. These can be emphasized with color or even sound to further assist the user in finding what they need within the content.

Simultaneous 2D-scrolling
Special scroll-bar like graphical control elements allow panning around a two-dimensional space by simply moving a single rectangle in any direction on the plane. For example, the GtkScrollpane from GTK+ is implemented in the text viewers gv and ghostview.

Another example for simultaneous two-dimensional scrolling is an alignment program for protein sequences. Initially, the horizontal scroll-bar looks like a conventional one. But then the scroll-bar offers three additional features:
 * 1) It provides an overview of the entire scene.
 * 2) The height can be enlarged.
 * 3) The knob can not only be moved left and right but also up and down for vertical scrolling.

In RISC OS dragging a scrollbar with the left mouse button operates in the usual way, but dragging with the right button causes the pointer to disappear and both scrollbars to be manipulated simultaneously. Many GUI operations in RISC OS perform a related but slightly different function when right clicked.

Customization

The ability and specific methods needed to customize the look and function of scrollbars can vary significantly based on which operating system or software application you are attempting to customize. A common method of altering the look of the scrollbar in Web pages is to use CSS directives to change the scrollbar colors. These are non-standard and supported only by Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.x or higher and Opera. And in WebKit-based browsers, there are pseudo-elements called: WebKit also provides many pseudo-classes to modify the style of scrollbars.
 * and
 * and
 * and
 * and
 * and
 * and
 * and

Scrollbars have also been enhanced to encode information about list entries. For example, Google Chrome introduces trough marks in the vertical scrollbar to indicate places in the document where a particular search term was found.

Limitations and issues
Computer literate users are often familiar with scrollbars, but those with limited knowledge may not intuitively understand them, especially given more recent variations, without assistance. Regardless of literacy, multiple issues can be found across various types of scrollbars and their interactions. In terms of design, if the window size is already small, the visible content area will be further reduced by the presence of a scrollbar. While some more recent disappearing scrollbars help mitigate this problem, more traditional ones do not avoid it, especially when there are both horizontal and vertical bars present.

In terms of use, many common issues have to do with accuracy. Mapping between the scrollbar and display is linear, so accuracy of use is relative to the size of the content. Navigation through a smaller document is then simpler than navigation through a larger document. This also means that all portions of a document are emphasized equally, and importance of each portion is not recognized by use of the scrollbar.

There is not often an indication of where in the content a scroll has reached unless the scrolling action is stopped to view the content. This makes it difficult regardless of whether or not the user knows what they are looking for or the general organization of the content. Those that do have an indicator are limited by the predetermined settings in visibility, amount, and style. If attempting to scroll while performing an action such as highlighting, the scroll amount may not correspond to the desired amount, overshooting or prompting the user to reposition multiple times. Overshooting can also occur when attempting to position near the top or the bottom of a single page within a larger set. An attempted small scroll adjustment by the user may result in a larger one as the scrolling activates an automatic action jumping to the next page.

Studies
A 1986 report by William Buxton and Brad Myers tested different two-handed interactions, including scrolling, clicking, and resizing. In their study, clicking and resizing were done in parallel. Their first experiment called for participants to perform a selection/positioning task, and their second experiment requested that participants do a compound navigation/selection task. The study found that users can perform these tasks faster and in parallel when they use both hands, but not necessarily when they use both hands simultaneously. They also found that the more related the tasks were that they user was doing with each of their hands, the faster they performed the tasks they were asked to do.

title: Scrollbar


text:
Andy Griffith

Andy Samuel Griffith (June 1, 1926 – July 3, 2012) was an American actor, comedian, television producer, singer, and writer whose career spanned seven decades in music and television. Known for his Southern drawl, his characters with a folksy-friendly personality, as well as his gruff but friendly voice, Griffith was a Tony Award nominee for two roles. He gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's film A Face in the Crowd (1957) and No Time for Sergeants (1958) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead roles of Andy Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) and Ben Matlock in the legal drama Matlock (1986–1995).

Early life and education
Griffith was born on June 1, 1926 in Mount Airy, North Carolina, the only child of Carl Lee Griffith and his wife, Geneva (née Nunn). As a baby, Griffith lived with relatives until his parents could afford to buy a home. With neither a crib nor a bed, he slept in dresser drawers for several months. In 1929, when Griffith was three, his father began working as a helper or carpenter and purchased a home in Mount Airy's "blue-collar" south side. Griffith grew up listening to music. By the time he entered school, he was well aware that he was from what many considered the "wrong side of the tracks". He was a shy student, but once he found a way to make his peers laugh, he began to come out of his shell and come into his own.

As a student at Mount Airy High School, Griffith cultivated an interest in the arts, and he participated in the school's drama program. A growing love of music, particularly swing, would change his life. Griffith was raised Baptist and looked up to Ed Mickey, a minister at Grace Moravian Church, who led the brass band and taught him to sing and play the trombone. Mickey nurtured Griffith's talent throughout high school until graduation in 1944. Griffith was delighted when he was offered a role in The Lost Colony by Paul Green, a play about Roanoke Island still performed today. He performed as a cast member of the play for several years, playing a variety of roles until he finally landed the role of Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom North Carolina's capital is named.

He attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1949. He began college studying to be a Moravian preacher, but he changed his major to music and became a part of the school's Carolina Playmakers. At UNC, he was president of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America's oldest fraternity for men in music. He also played roles in several student operettas, including The Chimes of Normandy (1946), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. Pinafore (1949). After graduation, he taught music and drama for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he taught, among others, Carl Kasell. He also began to write.

From rising comedian to film star
Griffith's early career was as a monologist, delivering long stories such as "What It Was, Was Football", which is told from the point of view of a naïve country preacher trying to figure out what was going on in a football game. The monologue was released as a single in 1953 on the Colonial Records label, and was a hit for Griffith, reaching number nine on the charts in 1954.

Griffith starred in Ira Levin's one-hour teleplay, No Time for Sergeants (March 1955) — a story about a country boy in the United States Air Force — on The United States Steel Hour, a television anthology series. He expanded that role in Ira Levin's full-length theatrical version of the same name (October 1955) on Broadway in New York City. The role earned him a Tony Award nomination for "Distinguished Supporting or Featured Dramatic Actor" nomination at the 1956 Tony Awards, losing to Ed Begley. He did win the 1956 Theatre World Award, however, a prize given for debut roles on Broadway. "Mr. Griffith does not have to condescend to Will Stockdale" (his role in the play), wrote Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times. "All he has to do is walk on the stage and look the audience straight in the face. If the armed forces cannot cope with Will Stockdale, neither can the audience resist Andy Griffith."

Griffith later reprised his role for the film version (1958) of No Time for Sergeants; the film also featured Don Knotts, as a corporal in charge of manual-dexterity tests, marking the beginning of a lifelong association between Griffith and Knotts. No Time for Sergeants is considered the direct inspiration for the later television situation comedy Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. – a spin-off of The Andy Griffith Show.

His only other New York stage appearance was the title role in the 1959 musical Destry Rides Again, co-starring Dolores Gray. The show, with a score by Harold Rome, ran for 472 performances and more than a year. Griffith was nominated for "Distinguished Musical Actor" at the 1960 Tony Awards, losing to Jackie Gleason. He also portrayed a US Coast Guard sailor in the feature film Onionhead (1958). It was neither a critical nor a commercial success.

Dramatic role in A Face in the Crowd (1957)
In 1957, Griffith made his film debut starring in the film A Face in the Crowd. He plays a "country boy" who is manipulative and power-hungry: a drifter who becomes a television host and uses his show as a gateway to political power. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg and co-stars Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Tony Franciosa, and Lee Remick (in her film debut).

A 2005 DVD reissue of A Face in the Crowd includes a mini-documentary on the film, with comments from Schulberg and cast members Griffith, Franciosa, and Neal. In his interview, Griffith recalls Kazan prepping him to shoot his first scene with Remick's teenaged baton twirler, who captivates Griffith's character on a trip to Arkansas. Griffith also expresses his belief that the film is more popular in recent decades than it was when originally released.

Early television roles
Griffith's first appearance on television was in 1955 in the one-hour teleplay of No Time for Sergeants on The United States Steel Hour. That was the first of two appearances on that series. In 1960, Griffith appeared as a county sheriff, who was also a justice of the peace and the editor of the local newspaper, in an episode of Make Room for Daddy starring Danny Thomas. This episode, in which Thomas's character is stopped for running a stop sign in a little town, served as a backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show. Both shows were produced by Sheldon Leonard.

The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968)
Beginning in September 1960, Griffith starred as Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show for the CBS television network. The show took place in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, where Taylor, a widower, was the sheriff and town sage. The show was filmed at Desilu Studios, with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, California.

From 1960 to 1965, the show co-starred character actor and comedian — and Griffith's longtime friend — Don Knotts in the role of Deputy Barney Fife, Taylor's best friend and comedy partner. He was also Taylor's cousin in the show at first, though later they dropped that cousin relationship and talked simply of knowing one another since boyhood. In the series premiere episode, in a conversation between the two, Fife calls Taylor "Cousin Andy", and Taylor calls Fife "Cousin Barney". The show also starred child actor Ron Howard (then known as Ronny Howard), who played Taylor's only child, Opie Taylor. It was an immediate hit. Griffith never received a writing credit for the show, but he worked on the development of every script. Knotts was frequently lauded and won multiple Emmy Awards for his comedic performances, as did Frances Bavier in 1967, while Griffith was never nominated for an Emmy Award during the show's run.

In 1967, Griffith was under contract with CBS to do one more season of the show. However, he decided to quit the show to pursue a movie career and other projects. The series continued as Mayberry R.F.D., with Ken Berry starring as a widower farmer and many of the regular characters recurring, some regularly and some as guest appearances. Griffith served as executive producer (according to Griffith, he came in once a week to review the week's scripts and give input) and guest starred in five episodes (the pilot episode involved his marriage to Helen Crump). He made final appearances as Taylor in the 1986 reunion television film, Return to Mayberry, with fellow co-star, Don Knotts. Two reunion specials followed in 1993 and 2003, with strong ratings.

Matlock (1986–1995)
After leaving his still-popular show in 1968, and starting his own production company Andy Griffith Enterprises in 1972, Griffith starred in less-successful television series such as Headmaster (1970), The New Andy Griffith Show (1971), Adams of Eagle Lake (1975), Salvage 1 (1979) and The Yeagers (1980). After spending seven months in rehabilitation for leg paralysis from Guillain–Barré syndrome in 1983, Griffith returned to television as the title character, Ben Matlock, in the legal drama Matlock (1986–1995) on NBC and ABC. Matlock was a country lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, who was known for his Southern drawl and for always winning his cases. Matlock also starred unfamiliar, struggling actors (both of whom were childhood fans of Andy Griffith) Nancy Stafford as Michelle Thomas (1987–1992) and Clarence Gilyard, Jr. as Conrad McMasters (1989–1993). By the end of its first season it was a ratings powerhouse on Tuesday nights. Although the show was nominated for four Emmy Awards, Griffith once again was never nominated. He did, however, win a People's Choice Award in 1987 for his work as Matlock.

Other television appearances
Griffith also made other character appearances through the years on Playhouse 90, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, The Doris Day Show, Here's Lucy, The Bionic Woman and Fantasy Island, among many others. He also reprised his role as Ben Matlock on Diagnosis: Murder in 1997, and his final guest-starring role was in 2001 in an episode of Dawson's Creek.

Films (including television films)
For most of the 1970s, Griffith starred or appeared in many television films, including The Strangers in 7A (1972), Go Ask Alice (1973), Winter Kill (1974) and Pray for the Wildcats (1974), which marked his first villainous role since A Face in the Crowd. Griffith appeared again as a villain in Savages (1974), a television film based on the novel Deathwatch (1972) by Robb White. He appeared as The Father in a 1976 PBS television adaptation, directed by Stacy Keach, of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. Griffith received his only Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie for his role as the father of a murder victim in the television film Murder in Texas (1981) and won further acclaim for his role as a homicidal villain in the television film Murder in Coweta County (1983), co-starring music legend Johnny Cash as the sheriff. He also appeared in several television miniseries, including the television version of From Here to Eternity (1979), Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Centennial (1978), and the Watergate scandal-inspired Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977), playing a former president loosely based on Lyndon B. Johnson.

Most of the television movies in which Griffith starred were also attempts to launch a new series. Winter Kill (1974) launched the short-lived Adams of Eagle Lake, which was canceled in 1975 after only two episodes. A year later, he starred as a New York City attorney for the DA's office in Street Killing, which also failed to launch a new show. Two television films for NBC in 1977, The Girl in the Empty Grave and Deadly Game, were attempts for Griffith to launch a new series featuring him as Police Chief Abel Marsh, a more hard-edged version of Andy Taylor; despite strong ratings, both were unsuccessful in leading to a new TV show.

During this period, Griffith also appeared in two feature films, both of which flopped at the box office. He co-starred with Jeff Bridges as a crusty old 1930s western actor in the comedy Hearts of the West (1975), and he appeared alongside Tom Berenger as a gay villainous colonel and cattle baron in the Western comedy spoof Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985).

Following another short-lived return to series television, playing a family patriarch in the Dynasty-inspired The Yeagers in 1980, Griffith continued to make guest appearances in several hit series, including Hotel, Fantasy Island, where he played a fictional version of western figure Judge Roy Bean featured in an aspiring singer's fantasy, and an episode of The Love Boat, which featured a memorable appearance by pop icon Andy Warhol. He also appeared as an attorney in the NBC miniseries Fatal Vision (1984), which is considered a precursor to his role in Matlock.

Griffith stunned many unfamiliar with his A Face in the Crowd work in the television film Crime of Innocence (1985)...wherein he portrayed a hateful and vindictive judge who routinely sentenced juveniles to hard prison time, followed by lengthy and equally-torturous probation. Also noteworthy in Griffith's darker roles was his character in Under the Influence (1986), a TV movie in which Griffith played an alcoholic, abusive patriarch. He further surprised audiences with his role as a dangerous and mysterious grandfather in the television film Gramps (1995) co-starring John Ritter. He also appeared as a comical villain in the spy movie spoof Spy Hard (1996) starring Leslie Nielsen. In the television film A Holiday Romance (1999), Griffith played the role of Jake Peterson. In the film Daddy and Them (2001), Griffith portrayed the patriarch of a dysfunctional southern family.

In the feature film Waitress (2007), Griffith played a crusty diner owner who takes a shine to Keri Russell's character. His last appearance was the leading role in the romantic comedy, independent film Play the Game (2009) as a lonely, widowed grandfather re-entering the dating world after a 60-year hiatus. The cast of Play the Game also included Rance Howard, Ron Howard's real-life father, who had made appearances in various supporting roles on The Andy Griffith Show, and Clint Howard, Ron's younger brother, who had the recurring role of Leon (the kid offering the ice cream cone or peanut butter sandwich) on The Andy Griffith Show.

Singing and recording career
Griffith sang as part of some of his acting roles, most notably in A Face in the Crowd and in many episodes of both The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. In addition to his recordings of comic monologues in the 1950s, he made an album of upbeat country and gospel tunes during the run of The Andy Griffith Show, which included a version of the show's theme sung by Griffith under the title "The Fishin' Hole". In later years, he recorded successful albums of classic Christian hymns for Sparrow Records. His most successful was the release I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns (1996), which was certified platinum by the RIAA. The album won Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album at the 1997 Grammy Awards.

Griffith appeared in country singer Brad Paisley's music video "Waitin' on a Woman" (2008).

Name dispute
William Harold Fenrick of Platteville, Wisconsin, legally changed his name to Andrew Jackson Griffith and ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Grant County in November 2006. Subsequently, actor Griffith filed a lawsuit against Griffith/Fenrick, asserting that he violated trademark, copyright, and privacy laws by changing his name for the "sole purpose of taking advantage of Griffith's fame in an attempt to gain votes". On May 4, 2007, US District Court Judge John C. Shabaz ruled that Griffith/Fenrick did not violate federal trademark law because he did not use the Griffith name in a commercial transaction but instead in order "to seek elective office, fundamental First Amendment protected speech".

Don Knotts
Griffith's friendship with Don Knotts began in 1955 when they co-starred in the Broadway play No Time for Sergeants. Several years later, Knotts had a regular role on The Andy Griffith Show for five seasons. Knotts left the series in 1965, but periodically returned for guest appearances. He appeared in the pilot for Griffith's subsequent short-lived series, The New Andy Griffith Show, and he had a recurring role on Matlock, from 1988 to 1992. In a January 2000 interview, Griffith said of Knotts, "The five years we worked together were the best five years of my life."

They kept in touch until Knotts' death in early 2006. Griffith traveled from his Manteo, North Carolina, home to Los Angeles to visit the terminally ill Knotts at Cedars-Sinai just before Knotts died of lung cancer.

Ron Howard
Griffith's friendship with child actor Ron Howard began in 1960 when they guest-starred in the episode of Make Room For Daddy that led to the formation of The Andy Griffith Show the same year. For eight seasons, they starred together in most of the show's episodes, portraying father and son.

They guest-starred together in the show's spin-off series Mayberry R.F.D. They appeared in an episode during which Griffith's character married his long-time girlfriend, Helen Crump, and in the Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. episode "Opie Joins the Marines", in which Howard's character, Opie, runs away from home and attempts to enlist in the US Marines. They co-starred in the TV special Return to Mayberry (1986), in which the now-adult Opie is about to become a father. They later appeared together in CBS reunion specials in 1993 and 2003. Griffith also made a comedy cameo on the Saturday Night Live program of October 9, 1982, hosted by Howard, who was, by then, in the early years of his directing career.

In October 2008, Griffith and Howard briefly reprised their Mayberry roles in an online video Ron Howard's Call to Action. It was posted to comedy video website Funny or Die. The video encouraged people to vote and endorsed Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

After Griffith's death, Howard stated: "His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around. The spirit he created on the set of The Andy Griffith Show was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment. And I think it was a reflection of the way he felt about having the opportunity to create something that people could enjoy. It was always with respect and passion for the opportunity and really what it could offer people in a very unpretentious and earthy way. He felt he was always working in service of an audience he really respected and cared about. He was a great influence on me. His passing is sad. But he lived a great rich life."

In a 2016 interview with US Magazine, Howard recalled Griffith encouraging his scriptwriting when he was just seven years old, saying "I felt elated." Howard recounted: "Andy Griffith said, 'What are you grinnin' at, young'un?' I said, 'That's the first idea of mine they've taken.' He said, 'It's the first that was any damn good. Now let's rehearse!'"

Political activities
In 2000, Griffith appeared in a last-minute campaign commercial where he endorsed then-Attorney General Mike Easley for governor of the state of North Carolina. Easley had been locked in a tight race with former Mayor of Charlotte Richard Vinroot and had been losing his lead in the polls. Easley went on to win that November, taking 52% of the vote to Vinroot's 46%. Many observers dubbed Easley's victory as the "Mayberry Miracle", and credit Griffith's endorsement for stopping his falling poll numbers.

In October 2008, Griffith appeared with Ron Howard in a Funny or Die video endorsement for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

In addition to his online video with Howard in 2008, in politics Griffith favored Democrats and recorded television commercials endorsing North Carolina governors Mike Easley and Bev Perdue. He spoke at the inauguration ceremonies of both. In 1989, he declined an offer by Democratic party officials to run against Jesse Helms, a Republican U.S. Senator from North Carolina.

In July 2010, he also starred in advertisements about Medicare.

Personal life
In 1945, while a student at the University of North Carolina, Griffith was initiated as a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a national social music fraternity for men.

Griffith and Barbara Bray Edwards were married on August 22, 1949, and they adopted two children: a son named Andy Samuel Griffith Jr. (born in 1957 and better known as Sam Griffith) and a daughter named Dixie Nann Griffith. They divorced in 1972. Sam, a real-estate developer, died in 1996 after years of alcoholism. The senior Griffith's second wife was Solica Cassuto, a Greek actress. They were married from 1973 to 1981. Griffith and Cindi Knight married on April 12, 1983, after they met while she was a cast member of The Lost Colony. They remained married until Griffith's death. Griffith also had three granddaughters through his daughter Dixie.

According to the 2015 book Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show, Aneta Corsaut and the married Griffith had an ongoing affair throughout the five years they worked together on The Andy Griffith Show; the affair was an open secret amongst the cast and crew.

Health and death
Griffith's first serious health problem was in April 1983 when he was diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome and could not walk for seven months because of paralysis from the knees down.

On May 9, 2000, he underwent quadruple heart-bypass surgery at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.

After a fall, Griffith underwent hip surgery on September 5, 2007, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

On July 3, 2012, Griffith died at his Roanoke Island home in Manteo, North Carolina, from a heart attack he had the day before; he was 86. His death certificate listed hypertension, coronary artery disease, and hyperlipidemia as underlying health conditions. In accordance with prior arrangements, no services were held at the time, and he was buried in a cemetery on the island within five hours of his death.

Awards and honors

 * Television Hall of Fame inductee (class of 1991)
 * Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
 * Andy Griffith Museum—a 2,500-square-foot (232 m2) facility which houses the world's largest collection of Griffith memorabilia—opened on September 26, 2009, in Mount Airy, North Carolina
 * Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album for I Love to Tell the Story – 25 Timeless Hymns in 1997
 * Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album (Hamlet in 1960) and Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album (Just As I Am in 1999)
 * Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductee (class of 1999)
 * A 11 mi stretch of US Highway 52 that passes through Mount Airy rededicated as the Andy Griffith Parkway
 * Statue of Griffith and Ron Howard (as Andy and Opie) constructed in Pullen Park in Raleigh, North Carolina
 * A second statue was later erected in Andy Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy of Andy and Opie outside the Andy Griffith museum.
 * Andy Griffith signature model guitar commissioned by C.F. Martin & Company
 * Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005)
 * Christian Music Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2007)
 * North Carolina Music Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2010)

Albums
• What It Was, Was Football (as Deacon Andy Griffith) on Capitol Records—EAP 1–498 (1953)

• Destry Rides Again (1959 Original Broadway Cast Album, Decca Records)

• Andy and Cleopatra on Capitol Records—T 2066 (1964)

• Just for Laughs (1958)

• Shouts the Blues and Old Timey Songs (1959) (album includes a guest appearance by bluesmen Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry)

• Songs, Themes and Laughs from the Andy Griffith Show (1961)

• Somebody Bigger Than You and I (1972)

• American Originals (1993)

• Precious Memories: 33 Timeless Hymns (1995)

• I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns (1996)

• Sings Favorite Old-Time Songs (1997)

• Just as I Am: 30 Favorite Old Time Hymns (1997)

• Wit & Wisdom of Andy Griffith (1998)

• Favorite Old Time Songs (2000)

• Absolutely the Best (2002)

• Back to Back Hits (2003)

• The Christmas Guest (2003)

• Bound for the Promised Land: The Best of Andy Griffith Hymns (2005)

• The Collection (2005)

• Pickin' and Grinnin': The Best of Andy Griffith (2005)

Features
• A Face in the Crowd (1957)

• No Time for Sergeants (1958)

• Onionhead (1958)

• The Second Time Around (1961)

• Angel in My Pocket (1969)

• Hearts of the West (1975)

• Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985)

• Spy Hard (1996)

• Daddy and Them (2001)

• The Very First Noel (2006) (voice)

• Waitress (2007)

• Christmas Is Here Again – Santa Claus (2007) (voice)

• Play the Game – Grandpa Joe (2008)

Short subjects
• Rowan & Martin at the Movies (1968)

• What It Was, Was Football (1997)

• Waitin' on a Woman (music video by Brad Paisley featuring Griffith) (2008)

• Ron Howard's Call To Action – Video Short – Andy Taylor (2008)

title: Andy Griffith