An octet is a a musical composition for eight instruments or voices, Or it's a set of 8 things (such as 8 bits) .. a byte is the smallest addressable unit of storage, frequently but not always 8 bits (hence the need for CHAR_BIT), it's tied to hardware; TI DSP chips can have 32 bit or 64 bit bytes.

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gerdesj 3 days ago | parent [-]

There are times when an exhaustive and formal definition of a word is not required. This is one of them.

However, I am aware that for some people, it can be annoying when someone else (me in this case) is seemingly lazy or just plain wrong when deploying words.

I used to be somewhat unkind about grammatical errors but let's face it: grammar is what the majority of people say it is and not what is pinned down in a book half-read and quarter-remembered from years ago.

A bit is perhaps the smallest addressable unit of storage (says my light switch) A byte manages to convey 256 different states and I would need eight light switches to store them.

	▲	defrost 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm largely indifferent to errors in spelling, grammar, or definition, save for those cases where others are incorrectly correcting others. The definition of byte is not a matter of grammar, and here on a forum centered about computing technology and business the distinction that matters not to you matters to many - CHAR_BIT is still part of current standards in important languages and hardware w/out 8-bit bytes is still in current use.