There are no good reasons for a component such as commons-lang to have any runtime dependencies beside Java itself. The commons-lang install base is enormous with very diverse usage patterns. Having it coupled to another libraries, regardless of the maintainer, invites all kinds of classloading problems when those libraries have different release cadences.
Using java.util.Random as a bridge between commons-lang and commons-rng is a very good solution. It allows for UniformRandomProvider instances to be used by commons-lang by simply adapting the providers to java.util.Random instances. The gives the users of commons-lang the ability to use the RNG of their choosing while allowing them to update the components independently of one another to avoid compatibility problems. This give the components high cohesion in that they can easily be used together and low coupling in that they are only bound via a shared, never changing API. Brent On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:36 AM, Gilles <gil...@harfang.homelinux.org> wrote: > On Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:57:04 +0200, Emmanuel Bourg wrote: > >> Le 27/09/2016 à 13:22, Gilles a écrit : >> >> I (strongly) suggest >>> >>> ArraysUtils.shuffle(Object[] array, o.a.c.rng.UniformRandomProvider >>> rnd) >>> >> >> That's not possible, because we don't want to add external dependencies >> to commons-lang. >> > > I mistakenly thought that your examples (cf. uncut previous post) meant > that this CM-alike tradition was coming to an end... > > Anyway, assuming there are still good reasons for CL to not have > dependencies[1], it is then all the more interesting that utilities > based on RNGs should have their own component. > > CL would benefit (reduced codebase reduces the maintenance cost) > and users would benefit (from using better generators). > > Moreover, the default RNG should be a good one, i.e. not >>> "java.util.Random". >>> >> >> Using java.util.Random by default is good enough, and it's consistent >> with Collections.shuffle(): >> >> >> http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/Collectio >> ns.html#shuffle-java.util.List- >> > > Well, of course, the JDK utilities use the JDK's RNG. > > That doesn't mean that Apache should do the same, or spread bad > practice: > http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.jones/GoodPracticeRNG.pdf > (see page 2 about "java.util.Random"). > > Gilles > > [1] Even if those would be in our total control! > > > >> Emmanuel Bourg >> >> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > >
