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From: Mark Carroll <mtbc@bcs.org>
Newsgroups: comp.programming
Subject: Re: 64-bit bytes
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:36:55 +0000
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BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

> On 12/01/2015 11:59, Richard Heathfield wrote:
(snip)
>> and (b) hampers our ability to describe alternative computer architectures.
>> What advantage does this restriction give us that compensates for the loss
>> of flexibility?
>
> We already have 'word' for that, where you generally need to qualify its 
> size, outside of a specific context such as a language.
(snip)

Exactly. For instance, Erlang, being designed to run on various odd
computer architectures, lets one ask,

	erlang:system_info(wordsize)

which is documented as,

] Returns the size of Erlang term words in bytes as an integer, i.e. on
] a 32-bit architecture 4 is returned, and on a pure 64-bit architecture
] 8 is returned.

which clearly implies 8-bit bytes.

(Erlang's other memory queries tend to be in terms of words.)

-- Mark