On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Raymond Toy wrote:
> On x86, the main part of the random number generator is in hand-coded > assembly. I'm pretty sure the part that converts them to double-floats > is also pretty efficient. Good to know. But anyway, with random numbers there is always some trade-off between quality and speed. So, for problems that either need a very fast RNG that may well be primitive, or for problems where cryptographic strength is important, the internal RNG might be inappropriate, I suppose. > > More or less. At least with (complex double-float) you may also run into > > trouble if you run out of FPU registers. Then again, the system will > > cons numbers. > > As I understand it, this doesn't happen. When you run out of registers, > the numbers are placed on the number stack, which doesn't cons. But I > might be wrong about this. I think to remember I experienced just this problem a few years ago, but I'd have to check again to really make sure. -- regards, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (o_ Thomas Fischbacher - http://www.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~tf //\ (lambda (n) ((lambda (p q r) (p p q r)) (lambda (g x y) V_/_ (if (= x 0) y (g g (- x 1) (* x y)))) n 1)) (Debian GNU)
