Buffer Abstraction

• The buffers are important.

• Their fixed size makes it necessary that they be refilled when exhausted (In buffers) and that they be written out when full (Out Buffer)

• This process can be abstracted rather well.

  • If abstracted well the merge code doesn't need to keep track of buffer status. It can just view the world as one big region even though the regions are really being processed as multiple block fetches.