Assorted delayed replies

[David Keaton]

>[Tim Peters]
>In any case, what I don't understand about the networking arguments
>I've heard here is that they seem to address a non-problem -- i.e., on
>a homogeneous network (or a network of all-754 machines), I'd be much
>better off transferring data in raw binary format, or as hex strings if
>I absolutely need a text file.  Then I incur essentially no
>conversion costs and guarantee perfect accuracy with trivial code.

     If you can do this, then there is no reason not to extend it to
heterogeneous environments.  Binary <--> binary conversion is much
faster and more precise than going through a decimal representation.
Something like Sun's XDR could be modified to translate floating point
numbers into the format of the destination machine instead of going
through an intermediate format.  This would solve the problem that
people are trying to solve with perfect decimal conversions.  That
would free up decimal conversions to be fast.

					David Keaton
					Cray Computer
					dmkacraycos.com