[Python-Dev] Time for a change of random number generator?
Stephen J. Turnbull
stephen at xemacs.org
Thu Feb 11 22:19:15 EST 2016
Steven D'Aprano writes:
> Peters has an opinion?) but if we do change, I'd like to see the
> existing random.Random moved to random.MT_Random for backwards
> compatibility and compatibility with other software which uses MT. Not
> necessarily saying that we have to keep it around forever (after all, we
> did dump the Wichmann-Hill PRNG some time ago) but we ought to keep it
> for at least a couple of releases.
I think we should keep it around forever. Even my slowest colleagues
are learning that they should record their seeds and PRNG algorithms
for reproducibility's sake. :-) For that matter, restore Wichmann-Hill.
Both should be clearly marked as "use only for reproducing previous
bitstreams" (eg, in a package random.deprecated_generators).
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