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Talk:Bitwise IO: Difference between revisions
Bits and bytes
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I believed my "mathematical" approach of the "huge {''rapresented in'' base 2} number" was clear; maybe I will rewrite the task using the byte streaming analogy (print "hello world" or print bin"11010100101001010110" should be similar...). Good Xmas and 2009 to all --[[User:ShinTakezou|ShinTakezou]] 02:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
: Yes, number is abstract and independent on the representation. This is why we can have different representations of numbers. This is why we can use numbers to describe so many different things. It is important to differentiate abstractions and representations, otherwise we would still be counting using fingers. One finger is not one.
: Digit is not a number, it is a symbol. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_digit See].
: Byte has many meanings. When byte is a minimal addressable/transportable storage unit, it becomes meaningless (and even dangerous) to talk about bits ordering in it. Sorry for being stubborn, but communication protocols in my bread. Too often people make nasty errors, leading to non-portable code, and sometimes putting someone's life in danger.
: There is no preferred ordering when we deal with conventional computer architectures, network protocols, parallel communication devices etc. Surely, since byte has a finite number of states, you can group states and then order these groups declaring them bits. But there is no preferred way to do it. If bits were addressable, then the order of addresses would be such a preferred way. In information systems there also are no bits in bytes, because bytes are used merely as a media layer.
: This is exactly your case. You have a sequence of bits, which you want to store as a sequence of bytes. Certainly you need to define how these bits define the bytes of in the sequence.
: But you don't need all this philosophy in order to unambiguously specify the task... (:-)) Merry Christmas! --[[User:Dmitry-kazakov|Dmitry-kazakov]] 09:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
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