From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.129.87.209 with SMTP id l200mr74072332ywb.4.1470514826235; Sat, 06 Aug 2016 13:20:26 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.157.32.22 with SMTP id n22mr5479446ota.2.1470514826159; Sat, 06 Aug 2016 13:20:26 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!c52no7359604qte.1!news-out.google.com!d130ni26820ith.0!nntp.google.com!f6no7882401ith.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 13:20:25 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <2a3fc931-feb3-4542-a4c9-e43affa5c4f4@googlegroups.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2601:191:8302:3f70:49c2:3a36:cc37:a052; posting-account=fdRd8woAAADTIlxCu9FgvDrUK4wPzvy3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 2601:191:8302:3f70:49c2:3a36:cc37:a052 References: <31c22983-150c-4dab-abba-588e15f75914@googlegroups.com> <84d258dc-b60d-4a49-9af4-27dd6f3e5f5f@googlegroups.com> <1703ca9a-2665-4435-9564-4abd8a77ebe9@googlegroups.com> <12ca4276-cd1e-49ae-b5dc-56432e721687@googlegroups.com> <2a3fc931-feb3-4542-a4c9-e43affa5c4f4@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <7d40c71b-574c-478b-8fcd-74a668e9afb9@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: New IEEE Language Popularity Ratings From: rieachus@comcast.net Injection-Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2016 20:20:26 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:31308 Date: 2016-08-06T13:20:25-07:00 List-Id: On Saturday, August 6, 2016 at 11:53:56 AM UTC-4, brbar...@gmail.com wrote: > Another example is random number generators. Knuth's Art of Computer=20 > Programming, Vol. 2, is the basic definitive reference. It includes ten > tests of a random number generator that anybody needing one should be sur= e > have been used. Park and Miller's article many years ago in CACM provide= s > code for a portable version of an algorithm that they put through the Knu= th > wringer. In my own work, I've got an Ada library for generating probabil= ity > distributions that includes Park and Miller's algorithm, since it include= s > a test as to whether it's been implemented correctly. I might trust the= =20 > algorithms in MatLab or Mathematica, but this kind of work is not for > amateur mathematicians. This is just bad advice today. I have some RNGs that are much, much better= than anything mentioned above, and which I now consider obsolete. Why? C= omputing has moved on from 16 bits, to 32, and now 64. Generators fine for= the 16 bit era are woefully obsolete today. (Mine were explicitly designe= d to get 36 to 48 bit effective generators on 32 bit machines. ;-) GNAT ha= s a generator which is fine for the 64-bit era, and won't take much work to= extend to 128 bits when needed. Oh, and if you need cryptographically secure random numbers? Run the outpu= t of the GNAT generator through SHA256, and you are good to go. (SHA-1 is = now deprecated and should not be used.)