> Computers really don't care. Literally. Same number of gates either way.
Eh. That depends; the computer architectures used to be way weirder than what we have today. IBM 1401 used variable-length BCDs (written in big-endian); its version of BCDIC literally used numbers from 1 to 9 as digits "1" to "9" (number 0 was blank/space, and number 10 would print as "0"). So its ADD etc. instructions took pointers to the last digits of numbers added, and worked backwards; in fact, pretty much all of indexing on that machine moved backwards: MOV also worked from higher addresses down to lower ones, and so on.
> FWIW, this is a weak argument for what computers should do; if LE is more efficient for machines then let them use it
I should have fleshed it out more fully, but basically, it was about how when you design an ALU, it's literally the same number of gates whether you swap the pins when you connect it to the rest of the system or not.
Using the computer is, of course, a different story that depends a lot on design decisions made when implementing it, and depending on your usage, endianness can matter more.
Eh. That depends; the computer architectures used to be way weirder than what we have today. IBM 1401 used variable-length BCDs (written in big-endian); its version of BCDIC literally used numbers from 1 to 9 as digits "1" to "9" (number 0 was blank/space, and number 10 would print as "0"). So its ADD etc. instructions took pointers to the last digits of numbers added, and worked backwards; in fact, pretty much all of indexing on that machine moved backwards: MOV also worked from higher addresses down to lower ones, and so on.