On Apr 16, 2008, at 11:00 PM, Greg Ewing wrote: > If a word is needed for this concept, then invent a new > one, e.g. "size unit", rather than reusing "byte", which > everyone already understands as meaning 8 bits.
Nope. Everyone understands "octet" to be 8 bits. Bytes being exactly 8 bits is itself the redefinition! In the not-too- distant-past, some hardware had 9-bit bytes. Common Lisp also uses the term "byte" to mean an arbitrary (specified) number of bits. E.g. http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/Body/typ_unsigned-byte.html See also http://dictionary.die.net/byte James _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list Python-3000@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
