Word of the day: Endianness
In the last 36 hours, two developers have emailed to tell me about their triumphs with “
Because I am supposed to present a knowledgeable fa?ɬßade, I emailed back saying, “Great”, “Excellent! :)” and so forth.
Then I ran to
Endianness generally refers to sequencing methods used in a one-dimensional system (such as writing or computer memory). The two main types of endianness are known as big-endian and little-endian.
Systems which exhibit aspects of both conventions are often described as middle-endian. When specifically talking about bytes in computing, endianness is also referred to as byte order or byte sex.
What could be plainer than that?!
I think it has something to do with
(Or possibly Jonathan Swift).
UPDATE: But I’m wrong. FastScripts developer Daniel Jalkut reveals all.
Tags: applescript, endianness, WikipediaRelated posts
January 26th, 2006 at 12:58 am
It’s not about AppleScript.
It’s about the difference between how Intel and PowerPC processors deal with the order of bytes.
January 26th, 2006 at 12:58 am
From what I gather it’s basically what makes the Intel and PowerPC processors different. I can’t remember which way round it us but it’s a fundamental difference.
I think the byte order thing refers to how binary numbers are stored so ‘1′ would be 0000001 in one endianness and 10000000 in the other. Or I may be completely wrong.
So anything that reads bits and bytes depends upon the order the bytes are written in.
(Great blog, by the way.)
January 26th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Ed, you’re basically right: one says 000001, the other says 100000, they mean the same thing. This is basically a cosmetic difference (though when you read bits and bytes you have to deal with it). The real differences in the two processors are far more complex, and understanding them requires a little specific knowledge. For those interested in the matter, I suggest reading “Structured Computer Architecture” by Andrew S. Tannenbaum.
January 26th, 2006 at 1:30 am
[...] Tim Gaden points out on his Hawk Wings blog that the term “endian-ness” has come into wide use in the Mac community lately, and it’s leaking out of the labs and into common conversation with customers. He astutely observes that many people haven’t got the foggiest idea what it means. [...]
January 26th, 2006 at 1:31 am
I started to make a concise summary here, but it quickly got too large for “comment courtesy” :)
http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/92/easy-endian-ness