[m-rev.] for review: announce the new RNG framework

[Julien Fischer]

For review by anyone.

--------------------

Announce the new RNG framework.

Announce the deprecation of the old RNG.

NEWS:
    As above.

Julien.

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index c5669f9a0..93d3cb773 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -294,6 +294,24 @@ Changes to the Mercury standard library
    Many other standard library modules now have additional predicates that support
    the new integer types; see the entries for those modules for details.

+### New Random Number Generator Framework
+
+* We have added a new type class based interface to random number generators
+  to the `random` module. The new interface provides predicates for:
+
+    - generating pseudo-random integers that are uniformly distributed
+      in a range.
+    - generating pseudo-random floats that are uniformly distributed
+      in a range.
+    - generating pseudo-random floats from a normal (i.e. Gaussian)
+      distribution.
+    - generating a random permutation of an array.
+    - generating a random permutation of a list.
+
+  Three new submodules, `random.sfc16`, `random.sfc32` and `random.sfc64`,
+  provide instances of the new type classes. Further instances can be found
+  in the extras distribution (see below).
+
  ### New Module: `diet`

  * This module provides discrete interval encoding trees, which are a highly
@@ -691,6 +709,22 @@ Changes to the Mercury standard library
    `stream.writer` typeclass, and changed its interface to group the prettyprinter
    parameters together in a value of the type that was designed for this purpose.

+### Changes to the `random` module.
+
+* The existing random number generator defined in this module has been
+  deprecated in favour of the type class based random number generation
+  framework described above.
+
+  As such, the `supply/0` type and the following predicates have been
+  deprecated and will be deleted in a future release:
+
+    - `init/2`
+    - `random/3`
+    - `random/5`
+    - `randmax/3`
+    - `randcount/3`
+    - `permutation/4`
+
  ### Changes to the `rbtree` module

  * The following predicates have been added:
@@ -1105,4 +1139,7 @@ Changes to the extras distribution
  * We have added support for Unicode and other enhancements to the `lex` and
    `regex` libraries. Thanks to Sebastian Godelet.

+* We have added some additional random number generator implementations for
+  use with the new random number generator framework.
+
  For news about earlier versions, see the HISTORY file.