Swapping bytes is a huge pain in the butt! When reading large binary files, it's so convenient and efficient to be able to mmap and make struct pointers right into the file. You can even deliver those files to web browsers and use JS's TypedArray to get random access into them.
(That requires a bit more than simply little-endian. It requires struct alignment and floating point formats to be the same. But with only a tiny bit of care it can be.)
For new code running in-core in 2018, I think little-endian is quite safe.
(That requires a bit more than simply little-endian. It requires struct alignment and floating point formats to be the same. But with only a tiny bit of care it can be.)
For new code running in-core in 2018, I think little-endian is quite safe.