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Darius Kazemi

@mhoye I'm grateful that the book doesn't have too many of those! But anyway, I guess I'm wondering why the collation order actually matters--do lower collated characters ultimately get evaluated by the card readers more efficiently?

5 comments
mhoye replied to Darius

@darius I bet it matters a lot for sorting efficiency and hardware costs.

mhoye replied to Darius

@darius It turns out, they keep beating that collation drum all the way through it! Sorting via mechanical processes is that important, and the idea of a compiler or even "software as a control flow operator" barely even registers as anything worth caring about until somebody has to explain _what a compiler is_ in like the second last chapter.

mhoye replied to mhoye

@darius And, OMG, the disastrous "null terminated string" design decision has its roots in a desire for _punch card re-usability_.

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