Re: [AD] rand() vs random()

[Hein Zelle <hein@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Wang wrote:

> I'm still against making it public, for more or less the same reasons I
> gave in September last year.  (Plus another: it should be a crime to
> knowingly distribute bad RNGs for general use.)

I'm not sure I remember your reasons from last september, but I agree
that distributing a bad RNG with allegro is not good, if it's
public. I prefer using alrand for the public part: it can be made
portable and using good algorithms. I guess that leaves the options to
include alrand in allegro and make it public, or to include a simple
random generator not visible to the public. I think I prefer the first.

> > First, I think as long as allegro only calls rand() and not srand(),
> > users output shouldn't be affected: as long as you consistently call
> > the blender functions the same amount of times, your random series
> > should be reproducable.
> 
> But it's unexpected and very fragile.

It's certainly unexecpected, but I can't think of any cases where it
would break. I agree it's not very pretty, though. If it stays in it
should probably be documented.

Hein

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 Unix is user friendly. It's just very particular about who 
 it's friends are.

 Hein Zelle                     hein@xxxxxxxxxx
	                        http://www.icce.rug.nl/~hein
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