"Ben Bacarisse" <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> a écrit dans le message de news:
87prz9c0xx.fsf@bsb.me.uk...
> "Charlie Gordon" <news@chqrlie.org> writes:
>
>> "Richard Heathfield" <rjh@see.sig.invalid> a écrit dans le message de
>> news:
>> t_KdnR8gONyx4ZfanZ2dnUVZ8taknZ2d@bt.com...
>> <snip>
>>> "Big endian" means that the most significant values come first in the
>>> underlying representation. A good example is prices in a shop: when we
>>> see
>>> 39.99 on a pair of jeans, we know that it's about 40 currency units, not
>>> almost a hundred currency units. "Little endian" means that the least
>>> significant values come first - and I suppose the obvious example would
>>> be
>>> UK date format: day/month/year.
>>
>> As compared to the big endian notation year.month.day used for
>> example in Japan, and the braindead endian mixup month/day/year used
>> in the USA.
>>
>> Lets refine your currency example: numbers are written in big endian
>> decimal
>> representation in English, but the same ordering of the digits in Arabic
>> is
>> indeed little endian.
>
> ... in most of the original ancient forms the "denomination" (sheaves
> of wheat, cattle, talents of silver) came, quote reasonably, after the
> number in the reading order. Hence writing £39.99 is a nod to the
> little-endian origin of the numbers.

Again, this is subject to cultural differences. In French, for example,
prices are usually written with the euro sign after the number,and
pronounced accordingly: "Ce logiciel est au prix de 21 ?"

--
Chqrlie.