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Let’s say I’m programming in Java or Python or C++ for a simple problem, could be to build an TCP/UDP echo server or computation of factorial. Do I’ve to bother about the architecture details, i.e., if it is 32 or 64-bit?
IMHO, unless I’m programming something to do with fairly low-level stuff then I don’t have to bother if its 32 or 64 bit. Where am I going wrong? Or am I correct???
correct for most circumstances
The runtime/language/compiler will abstract those details unless you are dealing directly with word sizes or binary at a low level.
Even byteorder is abstracted by the NIC/Network stack in the kernel. It is translated for you. When programming sockets in C, you do sometimes have to deal with byte ordering for the network when sending data … but that doesn’t concern 32 or 64 bit differences.
When dealing with blobs of binary data, mapping them from one architecture to another (as an overlay to a C struct for example) can cause problems as others have mentioned, but this is why we develop architecture independent protocols based on characters and so on.
In-fact things like Java run in a virtual machine that abstracts the machine another step!
Knowing a bit about the instruction set of the architecture, and how the syntax is compiled to that can help you understand the platform and write cleaner, tighter code. I know I grimace at some old C code after studying compilers!