LWG Reaction: Random Number library

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-06 11:24:45

Various Boost libraries were proposed to the C++ standards committee's 
Library Working Group (LWG) at the Redmond meeting for inclusion in the 
upcoming Library Technical Report (TR). What follows is my recollection of 
the reaction by the LWG to the Random Number proposal.

Jens presented his library, and received a generally favorable reaction.

Although there was some mention that random numbers are closer to the 
border of what should be in the standard library than other proposals 
(Rational hadn't been presented yet), there seemed to be quite a bit of 
interest in the proposal.

The key issue is "How many generators and distributions should be 
included?"  Like the STL, the library provides a framework.  Certainly some 
generators and distributions should be included, just as the STL contains 
some containers and some algorithms, but just how many?  Who 
decides?  Using what criteria?

A secondary issue is how to write the standardese specification for the 
generators and distributions.  The LWG probably doesn't want to attempt 
detailed specifications for something like a Mersenne Twister generator, 
for example.  Presumably the standard would just reference some other 
document.  I'll query the committee's admin folks to see what is an 
allowable reference.

--Beman