Re: [Boost-users] [random] present library status and doc

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [random] present library status and doc
From: Steven Watanabe (watanabesj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-02-01 10:46:57

AMDG

Thomas Mang wrote:
> What is the present library status of the random library,and in how 
> far are the documentation and the code base out-of-sync ?
>
> I just tried a variate_generator with mt19937 as engine and a 
> normal_distribution as distribution. IIRC, then some years ago this 
> did not work as the normal_distribution requires an input in the [0,1] 
> range, but now it seems to work. Looking into the header files I 
> concluded under the hood there has been quite some development going on.

variate_generator is supposed to work with any generator and any 
distribution.

> Also for uniform_01 things apparently changed quite a lot, there is 
> now also for example a new_uniform_01 etc.

It hasn't changed much.  The mess there is to make
uniform_01 consistent with the other distributions
without breaking backwards compatibility.

> My main questions:
> Is the library presently under active development ?

Mostly bug fixes.  I'd like to sync the library with the standard
at some point, but that's likely to be a while.

> Shall I rely on the docs, or not ? For example, is above normal 
> distribution now deliberately working, or am I relying on a 
> deliberately undocumented feature which might be removed later ?

If I recall correctly, the docs are mostly correct although incomplete.

> Because many more distributions now exist I think the docs are just 
> totally out of date. Any plans of updating them ?

Yes.  There's a draft at
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~swatanabe/random_doc/libs/random/doc/html/

In Christ,
Steven Watanabe