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  3. December 2008

Re: random number generator oddity

Emily Smith wrote:
We have a program that uses 'rand' to generate random numbers. I call this program requesting an eight byte number and receive a number 81239122. I sign off, and a coworker signs onto my workstation he also calls the program requesting an eight byte number, and also receives 81239122. He signs off, I sign back on, run the same program and receive a completely different number 73449833. I sign off. He signs back on again calls the program and receives 81239712.

You've already got some good suggestions on which to follow up, such as getting a grip on seeding, as well as making sure that any munging you do of the prng's results doesn't skew the distribution of the results.

Since I can't add any more info, I hope I can add some levity instead:
http://web.archive.org/web/20011027002011/http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2001182781025.gif
http://xkcd.com/c221.html

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