On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 12:50 PM, Donn Cave
I wonder how many ByteString users are `working with bytes', in the sense you apparently mean where the bytes are not text characters. My impression is that in practice, there is a sizeable contingent out here using ByteString.Char8 and relatively few applications for the Word8 type. Some of it should no doubt move to Text, but the ability to work with native packed data - minimal processing and space requirements, interoperability with foreign code, mmap, etc. - is attractive enough that the choice can be less than obvious.
Using ByteString.Char8 doesn't mean your data isn't a stream of bytes, it means that it is a stream of bytes but for convenience you prefer using Char8 functions. For example, a DNA sequence (AATCGATACATG...) is a stream of bytes, but it is better to write 'A' than 65. But yes, many users of ByteStrings should be using Text. =) Cheers! -- Felipe.