Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 19:52:33 +0200 (MET DST) From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD hackers) Subject: Re: I plan to change random() for -current (was Re: rand() and random()) Message-ID: <199610071752.TAA15133@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <l03010502ae7e89c5d209@[208.2.87.4]> from Richard Wackerbarth at "Oct 7, 96 05:32:46 am"
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As Richard Wackerbarth wrote: > I think that Terry pointed to the proper approach -- it is permissable, and > perhaps desirable, to generate a NEW function. It is not acceptable, for > historical compatability reasons, to CHANGE an existing one. The requirements for rand() are being set straight in the ANSI and ISO documents. There are no implementation details, and i don't see why we are obligued to keep a buggy implementation just since some people on the earth might be used to this one. If some particular package relies on the pseudo-unrandomness of a particular implementation, they should ship this particular implementation along with their sources (and give it a name that doesn't clash with the standard). There's nothing more they could expect from a standard-conforming implementation than to conform to the standard. We've already got a new function, and the original complaint was that the requirement to use this new function just in order to get reasonable behaviour as suggested by a standard basically defeats the entire idea of that standard. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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