There is zero benefit to having addresses be scalar integers. What's your point? IPv4 addresses happen to be scalar integers, and are often treated that way, particularly in C code. Tsk tsk all you want, we still have to fix it.
I don't see any reason either, but engineering purity doesn't trump reality; reality suggests that freeing us from the distinction might not be worth the cost, at least not soon.
Ok, there are benefits to not having to use bignum routines to do netmask calculations in those few applications that address whole networks at a time.
I don't see any reason either, but engineering purity doesn't trump reality; reality suggests that freeing us from the distinction might not be worth the cost, at least not soon.
Ok, there are benefits to not having to use bignum routines to do netmask calculations in those few applications that address whole networks at a time.