Re: Linux/IA-64 byte order

doctor@fruitbat.org
Thu, 11 Mar 1999 21:09:56 -0800 (PST)

Linus Torvalds said ...
> On Tue, 9 Mar 1999 doctor@fruitbat.org wrote:
> >
> > You should be looking for any good reason to choose one format over
> > another, not just technical reasons. Networks were built by humans and
> > debugged by humans. Quite frankly looking at raw network packets off of
> > a wire is much easier to read if it's readable by humans (and, yes, this
> > is exactly what I've done in the past).
>
> What is it with you people?

Umm.. we're gluttons for punishment ?-)

> LE and BE are completely made up constructs. Neither is better than the
> other.

While it might be true that neither is better than the other, the history
of *why* each form was invented shows that they are not completely made up
constructs. There is a method to the madness.

> If you want to look at network packets, nobody uses raw hex dumps. Or if
> they do, they should sure as hell not use "readable" as an excuse for
> doing so.
> There are tools out there to make data much more readable, and LE and BE
> has nothing at all to do with it.

When the various network implementations were invented, do you thing all
those fancy tools you talk about existed? Nope. But, since those tools
exist *now*, I guess you could make the case that the format is irrelevent.

> > > Avoid confusion.
> > How about "strive for a better Kernel" instead.
> For the last time: big-endian is _NOT_ "better". Never has been, never
> will be.

No, no. The statment was ment to mean "ignore the endianness and work on
the betterment of the kernel, instead". Sorry if I telegraphed the wrong
impression.

> People think I'm some kind of endianness bigot. I'm not. I just refuse to
> be conviced by completely spacious arguments. IA-32 is LE, and for that
> reason (and that reason alone), so is the IA-64 version of Linux going to
> be.
> Just because we don't want to mix, not because I think LE is somehow
> fundamentally better.

Calm down. No, we don't think you're an endianness bigot. In other
mail, I'd already stated that you'd made the choice of LE for IA-64 for
excellent reasons. Backwards compatability for existing binaries, more
common for PC platforms, etc. Most sane people accept that. No-one
having any involvement with the kernel thinks you make arbitrary
decisions.

Now, have a beer and relax.

> Linus

-- 
Peter A. Castro (doctor@fruitbat.org) or (pcastro@us.oracle.com)


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