Would one have to know the machine architecture to write code?
32-bit, 64-bit, c++, java, python
Solution
correct for most circumstances
The runtime/language/compiler will abstract those details unless you are dealing directly with word sizes or binary at a low level.
Even byteorder is abstracted by the NIC/Network stack in the kernel. It is translated for you. When programming sockets in C, you do sometimes have to deal with byte ordering for the network when sending data ... but that doesn't concern 32 or 64 bit differences.
When dealing with blobs of binary data, mapping them from one architecture to another (as an overlay to a C struct for example) can cause problems as others have mentioned, but this is why we develop architecture independent protocols based on characters and so on.
In-fact things like Java run in a virtual machine that abstracts the machine another step!
Knowing a bit about the instruction set of the architecture, and how the syntax is compiled to that can help you understand the platform and write cleaner, tighter code. I know I grimace at some old C code after studying compilers!
Problem
Let's say I'm programming in Java or Python or C++ for a simple problem, could be to build an TCP/UDP echo server or computation of factorial. Do I've to bother about the architecture details, i.e., if it is 32 or 64-bit? IMHO, unless I'm programming something to do with fairly low-level stuff then I don't have to bother if its 32 or 64 bit. Where am I going wrong? Or am I correct???