Byte order (retitled)
David Elins ext. 220
yde at necis.UUCP
Wed Apr 9 08:50:30 AEST 1986
What is right.
Whether a lexicographic sort be the equal of a numeric,
or mayhaps the addresses of bytes within a word mimic their significance.
'Tis not ours to decide, we may only give our thanks that there be (so
far) only two ways of attaching significance to these beasties.
A good article on the "Byte Order" problem appeared in the April Fool's
day issue of Computer Language Magazine. The author (Mike Higgins) took
a very sensible stand on what is the "right" way to order bytes.
That issue of CL was much fun. The article on Un*x is particularly good;
it answered a lot of questions for me on why things are the way they are.
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