RE: Why random number?

IMHO

The reasons stated for random numbers here-in are valid, another would be
QA in a manufacturing environment - but I would like to come to the
defense of the original poster - as he stated, "in a business environment",
which excludes then the random drug test; as this is an HR issue, and I
have not been at any company that bothers to maintain internal code for
HR, it is all canned, and that is included.  <soap box on>
As for juror selection, sorry, but that is not a business,
it is government, which as far as I have seen, could not run
a business to save their lives. <soap box off>

<back to reality>
But yes there are some valid reasons to know how, and be able to
prove it out that it does indeed work, but for your current background,
there is no valid reason, but; where will your next job be?
Just as I have not needed to code for parent/child relations for
item data bases since I too have been in distribution, but I know
how since the next job could be in manufacturing.
The next job could also be someplace that is against canned
packages - on that note, good luck, I hope they at least had,
and followed standards.


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
[mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Dave Boettcher
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 11:57 AM
To: 'midrange-l@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Why random number?


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Another application that needs to be random is juror selection.
SELECT JURORS FOR YEAR, MONTH and to APPEAR.

All three selections above must be provably random.  The programmer was
called to court once to describe the random selection and certify that it
was not biased in any way.


-----Original Message-----
From: Lurton Keel [mailto:LKeel@UNARCORACK.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 11:44 AM
To: 'midrange-l@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Why random number?

You obviously never had to set up a random sampling table for QC or a random
drug testing policy.
Both of these have to be proven to be totally random (Union Shop).

-----Original Message-----

I have a question I have been wanting to ask for a long time.

Every so often, the 'random number' thing comes up.  I have been in
programming for 27 years in the distribution business and never had the
need for a random number.  I can't think of why I would ever want one.

At the risk of appearing incredibly stupid, why would a business
programmer need a random number?