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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 104ef1,f546474144fabe5b X-Google-Attributes: gid104ef1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4033beee35bb066 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Subject: Re: random number generation -> PLEASE HELP! Date: 1996/09/06 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 178779213 references: organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA. newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.mac,comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-09-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <1996Sep5.165031@nova.wright.edu> jmatthews@nova.wright.edu (Dr. John B. Matthews) writes: > Nonsense. GNAT (the GNU Ada compiler from NYU; http://www.gnat.com/) > and MacOS (http://www.apple.com) have very satisfactory psuedo- > random number generators. The former is available in source from > ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat; the latter is shown below... Calling the Minimal Standard Random Number Generator good is true only in comparison to lots of other junk generators out there. The generator that comes with GNAT is much better. If you want the gory details as to why send me email. (Or you can just read the published literature if you want to find out why linear congruential generators are not very good. Of course, in any case, I really wouldn't trust implementations which get the credits that badly wrong. (Among other things the CACM paper was by Stephen PARK and Keith Miller, but the generator is actually due to Lewis, Goodman, and Miller. However the implementation here is apparently from a third source. The constants do check out though.) -- Robert I. Eachus with Standard_Disclaimer; use Standard_Disclaimer; function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...