NYCPHP Meetup

[Daniel Krook]

> Incidentally, I welcomed Joe's first comment in this thread --
> essentially, "I don't know from bits" -- because neither 
> do I, really. (-:
> It seems you can program PHP for years without (knowingly)
> shifting any
> bits.

Agreed, the only time I ever encountered a need for understanding bits and 
bitwise operators was the Sun Java Programmer 1.4 exam (and they're 
apparently no longer included on the 5.0/1.5 exam).   I had a good grasp 
of them for the time I was studying, but before and since I've rarely used 
them.  Like Joe, I wasn't a computer science major so I never had to learn 
them from an academic point of view either. 

I seem to recall that this article came in handy for getting a grasp on 
binary, and from there the bitwise operators:

"Learning Binary and Hexadecimal"
http://codeproject.com/tips/binhex.asp

So, to pose a new question on the value of learning about bitwise 
operators, what would you use them for in a standard web application?  ACL 
determination?  What else?



Daniel Krook, Advisory IT Specialist 
Application Development, Production Services - Tools, ibm.com

Personal: http://info.krook.org/
BluePages: http://bluepages.redirect.webahead.ibm.com/
BlogPages: http://blogpages.redirect.webahead.ibm.com/