[squeak-dev] The Squeak Random Number Generator
Jim Rosenberg
jr at amanue.com
Sun Sep 7 02:45:41 UTC 2008
I'm getting very queasy feelings about Random.
My understanding of the linear congruence random number generator algorithm
is that it depends (crucially) on doing exact integer arithmetic with
enough precision to hold all the digits in the multiplication at its heart.
Using floating point arithmetic for a linear congruence algorithm is one of
the classic ways of implementing a random number generator that is badly
flawed.
In my version of Squeak (3.8) the class Random seems to be using floats. Uh
oh.
Can somebody comment? Has the Squeak random number generator ever been
tested? (Knuth gives a whole raft of tests ...)
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