XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.books   
   From: throopw@sheol.org   
      
   : David DeLaney    
   : Or because you're not writing English.  Arabic numerals in ARABIC are   
   : little-endian.  They were adopted in the West with much the same   
   : physical appearance and order, and because Western scripts were   
   : left-to-right, they became big-endian.   
      
   Trying to minimize the utility by referencing historical accident   
   and implying that the choice of endian-ness is arbitrary is a   
   fairly common ploy (and, to be fair, effective in some cases,   
   though in reality no more relevant than pointing out the old   
   roman legion meaning of "decimate" to prove something about   
   what it means today).   
      
   But then, that's why they're called the "endian wars".  Because some   
   misguided people think littleendian is sensible for one or more of   
   these kinds of reasons.  Much like some misguided people think emacs   
   is sensible.   
      
   But really, the fact that you often say "the fifth" or "August fifth"   
   (because the year is obvious from context) isn't really an argument in   
   favor of littleendianism when adding the year explicitly.  I mean, if   
   you are trying to explain where a time displaced person came from (when   
   the displacement is large-ish), you'd probably first and foremost want   
   to know what year, hence "he came from ninteen fifty three, in August"   
   (if you're putting what most important/useful first) or whatnot   
   (depending on how much precision is wanted).  I mean, rather than   
   "he came from the fifth of August, in ninteen fifty three".   
   You know.  Practical everyday stuff like that...   
      
   But I digress.  There is a certain amount of sense in bigendianism for   
   many sorts of things.  In discussing quantities in practical terms,   
   starting with the big end means you get the general ballpark quickly,   
   and it fades into exponent/mantissa notations smoothly. To me, that   
   seems very useful indeed.[1] Obviously, other folks' mileage varies,   
   but what can you expect from those of the littleendian persuasion?   
      
   Of course, networking protocols at the lowest level are one byproduct   
   of the endian wars.  They simply *had* to take a neutral position, so   
   they had to throw away most of the advantages of the endian-ness they   
   chose, to accomodate processors designed by wrongendians.   
      
   But I digress.   
      
   And then...   
      
   But I digress.   
      
      
   [1] Though oddly enough, exponent/mantissa notations are nearly always   
       littleendian in essence... so go figure.  And *even* *worse*, the way   
       numbers are pronouced in english, eg, "three million, two hundred forty   
       thousand, one hundred fifty six"  is arguably *chaotic*-endian.   
       Ew, ik.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)