binary-io.md

+# Binary I/O
+
+
+It is widely regarded as a mistake that H'98 treats I/O as character-based.  The proposal is that I/O should operate over octets (i.e. 8-bit binary values) instead.  This would permit the layering of character-encoding conversions (see [Unicode](unicode)) over the top of the basic I/O mechanism.
+
+
+Pros:
+
+- cleans up an area of confusion
+- backwards compatible with all implementations
+
+
+Cons: