On Apr 29, 2009, at 11:47 AM, <> wrote:
Here is version 1 of the Sun 32-bit Binary Alignment Proposal. I'm hoping
to discuss this during tomorrow's KMIP meeting, and to move for its
acceptance if there is general consensus. Please send me any word-smithing
comments beforehand so that we don't use up meeting time unnecessarily.
I think it needs to be more clear about padding in strings. It's pretty explicit that bignums get padded out to 32-bits and how, and it appears that strings are also padded out, but it's not clear. If they are padded, there needs to be language, and if they are not, there also should be language as well as a discussion. If strings aren't padded, then there's little need to do this change, as the first string will dealign everything.
The type for Structure used to be 80 in a byte. Should it be 80000000 now? I'm presuming it should, otherwise it would have been 0A before.
I think we should pick one of "byte" and "octet." In this day and age, non-octet bytes are either a specialized term of art or charmingly quaint. I see nothing wrong with an explicit statement in the introduction that "byte" means "octet," but it's confusing to see both as it implies there's a difference. Just pick one and use it.
Jon
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Jon Callas
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