[Tutor] How to test function using random.randint()?

Alan Gauld alan.gauld at btinternet.com
Sat Mar 19 14:19:57 EDT 2016


On 19/03/16 13:03, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> But all joking aside, Python's pseudo-random number generator is one of 
> the best in the world, the Mersenne Twister. For non-cryptographical 
> purposes, it is as random as anything you are likely to need.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_Twister

But only if you want uniform randomness, for many simulation
purposes the distribution needs to be weighted according to
some non-linear distribution. For example, when we wrote a lot
of network simulators we used Erlang and Poisson distributions.
And for pink noise simulations we used Gaussian distributions.

You can of course produce those by filtering/weighting the
output from a linear distribution but in either case you need
to test the relative outputs at sampled slots along the range
to ensure the output fits the curve.


-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
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