Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 14:50:59 -0600 From: Warner Losh <imp@village.org> To: "=?KOI8-R?Q?=E1=CE=C4=D2=C5=CA_=FE=C5=D2=CE=CF=D7?=" (Andrey A. Chernov) <ache@nagual.ru> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: rand() and srand() Message-ID: <199610072050.OAA09190@rover.village.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 08 Oct 1996 00:15:20 %2B0400." <199610072015.AAA00446@nagual.ru> References: <199610072015.AAA00446@nagual.ru>
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In message <199610072015.AAA00446@nagual.ru> "=?KOI8-R?Q?=E1=CE=C4=D2=C5=CA_=FE=C5=D2=CE=CF=D7?=" writes: : NOBODY HERE WANTS TO BREAK THE "SAME SEEDING" in rand() or random()! : TERRY'S IDEA OF "SAME SEEDING" IS HIS OWN TOY WHICH HAVE NOTHIG : COMMON WITH STANDARD "SAME SEEDING" IDEA. If I understand what you are proposing, you are breaking the same seeding in one case. run program X with seed S get random number sequence R1. upgrade to new rev of FreeBSD run program X with seed S get random number sequence R2. which seems wrong to me and needs to be very loudly documented if that is the case. This obsoletes people's numerical research and a warning is needed. Look at the flack Intel got over the division bug. Not because it would happen so rarely, but the numerical types went non- linear because literally thousands of hours of results were invalidated and had to be done again. If this is well documented, including a blurb in the BUGS section of the man page, then it may be acceptible. It is a big issue that people know these things have changed. It is quite important to a small segment of the population. However, it is reasonable to expect them to cope with the change once they are informed of it. There are many workarounds for this issue. <non-technical> Finally, Terry's "Toy" as you call it is a legitimate use of the system. Many people are using the system in a similar manner. You might not like Terry or his Toys, but that is no excuse to yell at me *ME* about raising the same point he does. In fact, since this is a public forum, that is no excuse for a character attack on Terry (or anyone else). Please keep this discussion technical. If you can't do that, please don't post to hackers. </non-technical> Warner
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