On 04/09/06, Charles R Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Except for the last, none conflict with current routines and can be added > without a branch. I expect adding MWC8222 might need more extensive work and > I will branch for that. So the questions are of utility and naming. I see > some utility for myself, otherwise I wouldn't be considering doing the work. > OTOH, I already have (C++) routines that I use for these things, so a larger > question might be if anyone else sees a use for these. I like speed, but it > is not always that important in everyday apps.
How painful would it be to allow users to drop in their own sources of raw random numbers? A couple of years ago I was trying to analyze some X-ray timing data and we saw some peaks at the end of a long chain of periodicity-detecting software (Fourier transforms, parameter searching, et cetera). To rule out the possibility that they were coming from the random numbers we were using at one stage, I wanted to supply raw random numbers from /dev/random. Unfortunately, that forced me to write my own program to convert uniform random numbers to exponential. Allowing the function that generates raw random bytes to be overwritten would be extremely handy, even if it were painfully slow. In the same project I also noticed it would be nice to be able to (say) do "exponential(2+sin(arange(10)))" to get an array of exponentials with varying parameters. I realize all this is outside the scope of what you were asking. I would have found another pseudorandom number generator that I could just switch to a benefit; the rest of them are less exciting. When you say "32-bit integers" do you really mean 32-bit, or do you mean "machine width"? 32-bit integers may not be faster on 64-bit platforms... A. M. Archibald ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Numpy-discussion mailing list Numpy-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/numpy-discussion
