Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!aioe.org!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.programming
Subject: Re: 64-bit bytes
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 14:15:01 +0000
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <87lhl8t7a2.fsf@bsb.me.uk>
References: <1d1b426e-452d-43ac-a15d-31dff9833370@googlegroups.com> <a19e7c48-06e8-4b66-8faf-e7f4b92af0a9@googlegroups.com> <442bffa5-0e87-4924-a8e2-19dc69236183@googlegroups.com> <07379e64-43df-4e01-9506-fee7d5f56c80@googlegroups.com> <GCEsw.973563$CW3.557830@fx07.am4> <GxFsw.532620$td3.314128@fx34.am4> <y9Msw.578728$RM2.35041@fx43.am4> <srOsw.570775$9b1.159484@fx05.am4> <RGOsw.496550$lM6.489669@fx22.am4> <y%Osw.742376$MH.437411@fx12.am4> <874mrwmazc.fsf@ixod.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="017616aa25f81ec581c44d76d61ba2f3"; logging-data="3618"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/JRU4GPxLj/gaMBo6yHkWIlzEdhqMrgco="
Cancel-Lock: sha1:zIbFIlU5V8KamnM9FqvsELkdu4Q= sha1:stBPfrJwNbBxlT+Vd0OS5S9VGIo=
X-BSB-Auth: 1.d7e0a4905672a0097a97.20150112141501GMT.87lhl8t7a2.fsf@bsb.me.uk
Xref: csiph.com comp.programming:5098

Mark Carroll <mtbc@bcs.org> writes:

> 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.

I would not call 32-bit and 64-bit architectures "odd"!  What would it
do on a 36-bit or a 60-bit machine?

Not knowing anything about Erlang I'm curious about the need to make any
assumption about bytes at all.  Why does the function not return the
number of value bits?  Surely that's both more flexible an just as
useful?

-- 
Ben.