But seriously - it should be clear that big endian things are daft too. The only thing which persuades us even for a moment that big endian makes any sense at all is that we write big numbers with most significant digit on the left and yet we enumerate lists left to right.
Little endian is the One True Way. I want my entire computer to just store ONE BIG NUMBER !
(Plus, furthermore, "Ten little, nine little..." etc. !)
The only thing which persuades us even for a moment that big endian makes any sense at all is that we ...
... want to be able to read our own data off a memory dump.
And yes, on balance of things we should bite the bullet and use little endian machines, but at least there's an argument to have. American dates are just rubbish.
Big endian dates (2004-01-09) are vastly preferable to little endian dates (09/01/2004) given that we use a big endian numeral system, because it means you have an outside chance of being able to sort them.
I feel I have to point out here that teh song (which, thanks to you, bateleur, I have been humming all morning, actually starts little endian - as in, "One little, two little, three little endians".
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-01-09 02:42 am (UTC)The point being that anything middle endian is automatically Just Wrong.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 02:59 am (UTC)But seriously - it should be clear that big endian things are daft too. The only thing which persuades us even for a moment that big endian makes any sense at all is that we write big numbers with most significant digit on the left and yet we enumerate lists left to right.
Little endian is the One True Way. I want my entire computer to just store ONE BIG NUMBER !
(Plus, furthermore, "Ten little, nine little..." etc. !)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 03:21 am (UTC)The only thing which persuades us even for a moment that big endian makes any sense at all is that we ...
... want to be able to read our own data off a memory dump.
And yes, on balance of things we should bite the bullet and use little endian machines, but at least there's an argument to have. American dates are just rubbish.
Big endian dates (2004-01-09) are vastly preferable to little endian dates (09/01/2004) given that we use a big endian numeral system, because it means you have an outside chance of being able to sort them.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 04:03 am (UTC)