[mercury-users] random.m: little warning

[Andrew Bromage]

G'day all.

You (Thomas Charles CONWAY) wrote:

> I wrote the original one which is a simple linear-congruential generator
> (from Numerical Recipes in C - Press et al). I found it to have poor
> behaviour too. Appended to this mail is a better one - it is much more
> expensive, but is pretty good.

Let's not forget that "poor behaviour" is relative.  If all you want to
do is shuffle a deck of cards, a simple linear-congruential generator
(used wisely) may well be sufficient.  Many people simply don't need
"good" random numbers for a theoretical definition of "good".

Now if you were doing Monte Carlo simulations, or generating crypto
session keys...

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage