On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 2:55 AM Kevin Sheppard <kevin.k.sheppard@gmail.com> wrote:
I’m not sure if this is within the scope of the NEP or an implementation detail, but I think a new PRNG should use platform independent integer types rather than depending on the platform’s choice of 64-bit data model. This should be enough to ensure that any integer distribution that only uses integers internally should produce identical results across uarch/OS.
Probably an implementation detail (possibly one that ought to be worked out in its own NEP). I know that I would like it if the new system had all of the same distribution methods as RandomState currently does, such that we can drop in the new generator objects in places where RandomState is currently used, and everything would still work (just with a different stream). Might want to add a statement to that effect in this NEP. I think it's likely "good enough" if the integer distributions now return uint64 arrays instead of uint32 arrays on Windows. -- Robert Kern