Re: Linux/IA-64 byte order

Linus Torvalds (torvalds@transmeta.com)
Mon, 8 Mar 1999 22:44:22 -0800 (PST)


On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Cort Dougan wrote:
>
> }Mixing endianness on the fly is certainly possible, but stupid unless
> }you have some REALLY good reason for it. And quite frankly, there are
>
> You'd argue that running LE on machines with mostly LE devices isn't a
> good technical reason? Even if the overhead of swapping (an instruction
> for it) isn't too large it certainly would make things cleaner.

No, I'm arguing AGAINST using BE.

I know there are folks out there who like BE, but let's just face it: the
PC platform is LE, and will stay so. Going to mixed-mode just because
misguided people like the old BE format is not an option I am willing to
entertain.

The computing world would be better off with just one byte order, that
byte order isn't going to be BE.

Linus

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