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Constraint on length of message & segment to be integral number of bytes, as mentioned in Cerf & Kahn’s Paper

        I have a question about the below excerpt from Cerf, V.; Kahn, R. (1974). "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication". IEEE Transactions on Communications. 22 (5): 637–648.
... Furthermore, we constrain the length of a segment to an integral number of 8-bit bytes. This uniformity is most helpful in simplifying the software needed with HOST machines of different natural word lengths. Provision at the process level can be made for padding a message that is not an integral number of bytes and for identifying which of the arriving bytes of text contain information of interest to the receiving process.
Que: In the first part of the excerpt, the constraint is put on the length of a segment but in the next part the provision is suggested at the process level for padding a message. Aren't these two conflicting arguments? One is suggesting constraint at the TCP and later at the Process.

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