Like you say it really depends on what your job is. For me those bit algo's for a few years were my jam. I was moving data between 4 different CPU types and across 3 different network transports depending on the project and 4 different OS's. You need to know your bits when moving data between diff arch types and across different transport layers. These days most of that same sort of thing I did then? I would drop it into a json text stream and call it a day.