On 06.09.2016 20:46, Bernardo Sulzbach wrote:
On 09/06/2016 03:37 PM, Sven R. Kunze wrote:
Besides being a silly argument, it's an interesting solution.
Does it really work? I remember Microsoft utilizing a similar approach
for their browser selection tool which led to a skewed probability
distribution. Maybe, I wrong here though.
Yes. The key is evaluated only once, so each element gets a
pseudo-random number. Sorting this list leads to a shuffle.
Ah yes, that might make it work.
However, a super-linear shuffle, whilst Fisher-Yates is a linear
solution and also requires less additional memory.
Lastly, although it is obvious, from a software engineering
standpoint, this is a mere weird hack.
Sure, but it works. ;) Though I agree that's not really intuitive if you
are looking for "just shuffle that list, please".
Cheers,
Sven
PS: here's the statistical analysis of the browser ballot issue with
some explanations on the different algorithms on shuffling:
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/02/microsoft-random-browser-ballot.html
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