Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tank!uxc!uwmcsd1!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!bill
From: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Portability across architectures..
Keywords: Portability, common data, files
Message-ID: <764@proxftl.UUCP>
Date: 14 Sep 88 20:00:27 GMT
References: <103@simsdevl.UUCP> <7038@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Distribution: all
Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
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In article <7038@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> scs@adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit) writes:
: I'm not sure how using ASCII data formats could "hamper a
: products' marketability."  If not an efficiency concern, it's
: probably some attempt to keep information hidden in a cryptic
: binary format rather than having it in plain text that anyone
: could read.

One major reason for using binary over ASCII is that the binary
is usually going to be more compact.  If your data files *have*
to fit in some specified amount of disk space (like one floppy
disk), the difference might be critical.

---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!bill