You know how some languages write left-to-right, and some rught-to-left? Endianness is that, for numbers.
Or another analogy is dates: 2025/12/31 is big endian, 31/12/2025 is little endian. And 12/31/2025 is middle endian. Which makes no sense at all because the middle is, by definition, not an end.
I stand corrected. No idea what I was reading (several years ago), but whatever it was made it seem way more complicated. Maybe it was just an explanation from somebody who didn’t know.
Likely it was being explained in the context of binary number representation as it is primarily important in computer architecture. If you’re not already familiar with that then it was probably confusing explained in that context.
Tried reading about endianness once. Pretty sure it can’t be dumbed down enough for my brain.
You know how some languages write left-to-right, and some rught-to-left? Endianness is that, for numbers.
Or another analogy is dates: 2025/12/31 is big endian, 31/12/2025 is little endian. And 12/31/2025 is middle endian. Which makes no sense at all because the middle is, by definition, not an end.
I stand corrected. No idea what I was reading (several years ago), but whatever it was made it seem way more complicated. Maybe it was just an explanation from somebody who didn’t know.
Likely it was being explained in the context of binary number representation as it is primarily important in computer architecture. If you’re not already familiar with that then it was probably confusing explained in that context.