Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ames!vsi1!octopus!avsd!childers
From: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: How do I get random #s?
Message-ID: <500@avsd.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 89 23:44:19 GMT
References: <19415@dhw68k.cts.com> <225800121@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <514@larry.UUCP>
Reply-To: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Organization: die Edelstahlratte
Lines: 38

jwp@larry.UUCP (Jeffrey W Percival) writes:

>... but when it comes to decent random numbers, the user sees a big
>"go jump in a lake".

If someone asks you for the perfect programming language, give them a lollipop.

>... as far as *I* am concerned ... Random numbers in computers are not a new
>or minor need. Why, you computer industry out there, have you left one big
>turd in the middle of a *great* superhighway?

In some respects, you've answered this yourself. Most people don't see it,
they're intent on where they are going, and they're going too fast. They
don't even notice the bump. Databases don't use ramdon numbers much ...

More generally, random numbers are useful only for games, simulations, and
cryptographic applications. Of those three applications, only one of them
is profitable enough to have generated its own hardware, DES-on-a-chip, as
it were, thus fulfilling your demand for such a product.

Of the remaining two, games and simulations, the people involved usually run
up against the problem and understand its nature when they try to solve it,
as they are dealing with pools of probability that need to be massaged into
a precise configuration, and are usually reasonably sophisticated at math.
If you were to do this, you would find that it is still an unsolved challenge
to derive a good random number, and there is room for original work. Which is
kind of nice to know, I think ...


>Jeff Percival (jwp@larry.sal.wisc.edu)

-- richard

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