mike meyer tlfmiredorg thu 17 apr 2008 163241 1200 greg ewing wrote david cournapeau wrote maybe everyone understands 8 bits always wrong may officially written anywhere almost everyone world understands byte mean 8 bits go computer store ask 256mb ram dont expect asked size bytes would sir key word almost actually reason almost context almost always hardware 8 bit bytes computer store question exclusively sold hardware used 9bit bytes wouldnt ask size bytes theyd give 9bit bytes sold heterogeneous hardware might well ask de facto standard one works perfectly well going futile unnecessary far see yup probably futile people dont care portability precision use byte mean 8bit byte hand trying redefine byte mean 8bit byte also futile company builds hardware software bitslice processors manipulates subword units hold single characters going call things bytes matter length standards cant get away sloppy usage thats common practice wind providing definitions words may seem contradict repeat common usage using uncommon words precise meaning place common word usually always meaning could make pretty much case computer means machine running windows almost everyone world understands computer mean go computer store ask computer expect offer machine running windows without asking operating system would sir httpwwwmiredorgconsultinghtml independent networkunixperforce consultant email information _______________________________________________ python3000 mailing list smsbmo9552pythonorg httpmailpythonorgmailmanlistinfopython3000 unsubscribe httpmailpythonorgmailmanoptionspython3000python300040tangomucom sun 03 aug 2008 160049 0400 python3000 sizeofsize_t sizeoflong