From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Mike Gran Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Improve `seed->random-state' in stable-2.0? Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:08:33 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <1327385313.96358.YahooMailNeo@web37907.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <87d3afvyr6.fsf@netris.org> <87ipk6tof0.fsf@pobox.com> <878vl2w6ig.fsf@netris.org> <874nvqt8n0.fsf@pobox.com> <1327103164.6054.YahooMailNeo@web37901.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <8739b6rbdm.fsf@pobox.com> <1327323996.38012.YahooMailNeo@web37904.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <87hazmpl7k.fsf@pobox.com> Reply-To: Mike Gran NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1327385327 24714 80.91.229.12 (24 Jan 2012 06:08:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:08:47 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Mark H Weaver , "guile-devel@gnu.org" To: Andy Wingo Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 24 07:08:43 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RpZYg-0005gf-IU for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:08:42 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34359 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RpZYf-0003Td-QH for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:08:41 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:48794) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RpZYb-0003TN-BN for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:08:38 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RpZYa-0004zR-9q for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:08:37 -0500 Original-Received: from nm29.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com ([98.139.91.99]:33200) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RpZYZ-0004zN-OI for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:08:36 -0500 Original-Received: from [98.139.91.64] by nm29.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2012 06:08:35 -0000 Original-Received: from [98.139.91.60] by tm4.bullet.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2012 06:08:35 -0000 Original-Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp1060.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2012 06:08:35 -0000 X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 80994.99871.bm@omp1060.mail.sp2.yahoo.com Original-Received: (qmail 96377 invoked by uid 60001); 24 Jan 2012 06:08:34 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1327385314; bh=B9uhCCdpd7f7h1yalrsng3knGaLueLL1v36kDGSrJYc=; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Message-ID:Date:From:Reply-To:Subject:To:Cc:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=uRaAQ4eHfATXAgKYqITY8DN9nRzu9Nsy8Y4kNrXXyokKnMxPF8FNDAzOogmWof9q8lEatOPeSD932y6JYZkU/AxYpg7i/I2M6kvlRUb3olDFHsTtb4SBJX77biCa/C0OiEzNXnVjJlgwD4H3PSkFJQrcNGK4/o4SmcREUgROrms= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Message-ID:Date:From:Reply-To:Subject:To:Cc:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=5rU0g4mLIIVp/p3Bpz+7HAebdSgunnS6EWclVnIo3YpXP9hfYCceVWbEzDBXT7847HFa8lVwzbxeOs3ZYe7VIV40XCOmm53n5Cbm+QvhnX7TrwBMPU1kV1kk52Mt/Rj5dIVXO2SlW92sly/WMUpLc+VJs1iKbHT9Hv+2sbfVlvY=; X-YMail-OSG: wbTZK_0VM1nOZ2UpxoHiHp8kJLbPRBA9LFOyc0nkpxidKBY wktjNfC6o_WvKPHhvzGxL0n_e5bdMvg1dsxlC3.38PnEqyUIKbzeZp6GQxQx ZRdTr7c0khUYUnCT3StCfwY8jefnYfxzMd54SLx4sc06QtPyCm7Ksk9mQ1Aw WMgDN_Ca4HcRPxDux0tTgmXpLbkyOgQFHjMIn3PICnX5Mgj2EAPND2zp0oiv vDPv3U0pTmy0N9pg3FiV.rGcGmoRvGoLp9DQAX_Aybj6hmpHuuu6GUGD5cBx 83N8hUcTC4bCJNWZ_f0gN45WUjXDf.KuH5wKtpSEbpQpN9LIp5YpRS7osYUh sUqZQVuFFX_bCFZvHjBx4hLcvZYeeY3BrbmqcOTh.qyg2ibNix3syBu4hCk8 D2HZwcGHCiU5HLGcP69qQByILG3hokcFjrBbTyiAIDsZI1xdvlbjG2U8bvX8 rfzMMotDJQIDa6Q-- Original-Received: from [71.130.222.102] by web37907.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:08:33 PST X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.8.116.331537 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 98.139.91.99 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:13653 Archived-At: > From: Andy Wingo =0A> That would indeed be a mean thing = to do!=A0 It's not what I'm suggesting=0A> though.=A0 Deprecation means cau= sing Guile to emit warnings, at=0A> compile-time or at runtime, indicating = that a particular interface will=0A> go away at some point, and noting the = interface that should be used=0A> instead.=0A> =0A> I think it's fairly hel= pful, actually, but if you have any suggestions=0A=0A> for how it could be = improved, they are much welcome.=0A=0A=0AMy beef is with potentially removi= ng the ability to use an integer seed in =0A=0Aseed->random-state.=A0 It is= useful and common.=A0 Many other languages=0Aand schemes do it the same wa= y.=A0 Its strengths and limitations are=0Aindicated in the manual.=A0 =0A= =0A=0AI could make a technical argument about why this procedure's calling= =0Astructure w.r.t. integers shouldn't change: but the technical argument= =0Awould just be an attempt to justify my personal opinion that a documente= d=0AAPI that I have used in scheme code that currently works fine shouldn't= be=0Abroken.=0A=0A=0AThis is orthogonal to the bug in the procedure, thoug= h.=A0 A user should=0Abe able to expect the for each integer seed between 0= and 2^N,=0Afor some value of N, that the PRNG will return a different seri= es.=0AIt works that way in most languages that allow integer seeds.=0AThank= s,=0A=0AMike