There are pretty good approximations for s > 1.0 using Riemann zeta
function and Euler derived a formula for the s = 1 case.
I believe that's what random_zipfian() already uses, because for s > 1.0
it refers to "Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation" by Luc Devroye, and
the text references the zeta function.
Yep.
Also, I have not observed serious issues with the s > 1.0 case (despite
the docs seem to suggest there may be some).
The performance issue is for s > 1.0 and very close to 1.0, et
things like s = 1.000001
I also noticed that i is int in this function, but n is int64. That
seems like an oversight.
Indeed, that is a bug!
Using it for a really int64 value would be very bad, though. Maybe there
should be an error if the value is too large, because calling pow billions
of times is bad for the computer health.
--
Fabien.
