RE: RFC: Bytecode file format

[Hong Zhang]

> We can't do that. There are platforms on both ends that
> have _no_ native 32-bit data formats (Crays, some 16-bit
> CPUs?). They still need to be able to load and generate
> bytecode without ridiculuous CPU penalties (your Palm III
> is not running on a 700MHz Pentium III, after all!)

If the platform can not deal with 32-bit value, the runtime
can convert it to their own in memory format. Almost all
platforms can deal with 32-bit value from file/data base.

All these is based on the assumption of portable bytecode
file. If the file is just snapshot of runtime image, there
is not need to discuss much here, since each runtime can
just choose its own format without worry about interexchange.

Hong