Portability across architectures..

[T. William Wells]

In article <7038 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> scs at 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