Re: Re rand('state',0)

[Bill Denney]

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Brian Blais wrote:

> John W. Eaton wrote:
> > 2.9.x accepts both "state" and "seed".  But it is still the older rand
> > based on the Fortran ranlib.  Should we replace that with the code
> > from Octave-forge?
>
> I am not sure which algorithm the fortran ranlib uses, but I seriously doubt 
> it is better than MT.  if it is old, then it certainly is much poorer than MT 
> and should be replaced with the octave-forge code.

I know that the standard fortran rand (I don't know if this is the same as 
ranlib) is a simple linear congruent RNG, and it has known bad seeds.  MT 
is (as far as I know) the state of the art RNG, and it has no known bad 
seeds.

I'd say that the MT version should be used.

Bill

--
"Women like silent men. They think they're listening." -- Marcel Archard



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