Hello all,
Recently I realized that TestU01 had been packaged in the latest
Ubuntu, so for fun, I thought I'd have a little play with it and
see if I could set up something to trial Phobos' uniform random
number generators.
The (very, VERY) provisional results are here:
https://github.com/WebDrake/dtestu01
Note that these are not bindings in the conventional sense; I
took a deliberate decision to expose as little of the library as
possible, with the goal being only to expose those things
necessary to pass Phobos RNGs into the test batteries. Of
course, I will happily consider extending the bindings (or
accepting patches to do so) if anyone has a need for it. It's
not yet implemented as a dub package, but will be in the
not-too-distant future.
The point here is that TestU01 provides a state-of-the-art means
to validate the statistical quality of pseudo-random number
generators, i.e. the extent to which these deterministic
algorithms effectively mimic randomness. These can be used to
help ensure that Phobos implementations of RNG algorithms are up
to scratch, and that the functionality we provide covers an
appropriate range of algorithms quality-wise.
I'll continue to work on this as and when time allows; the
results will probably be sporadic, but I hope the current public
work will be useful to someone in the meantime.
Thanks & best wishes,
-- Joe