Re: Zip V8 (Re-releasing Zip)
19 Nov 1995 15:41:06 GMT
In article <weka4zzfof.fsf@iasc3.scm.liv.ac.uk>,
Bruce Stephens <bruce@liverpool.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> "John" == John Holder <jholder@nmsu.edu> writes:
>
>> I agree. I would be happy for JZIP to join the bandwagon - I think
>> there is still room for differing user interface modules, for the
>> "look and feel" thing, but the rest of the core code should be the
>> same. The only problem I forsee is that the two zip_random functions
>> out there are not interchangeable.
>
>So make this part of the "user-interface" part too.
On the other hand, I can see no reason whatever for random numbers
being OS dependent, except for the fact that different C libraries
implement the random functions differently.
Creating pseudo-random numbers is a mathematically well-defined
algorithm that includes no OS dependence at all, just some integer
arithmetic and bit fiddling. There are excellent algorithms published
that are *much* better than the ones usually provided in C libraries.
Why not just implement one of these, and get rid of the OS dependence
altogether?
Magnus