On 29/12/2011 19:55, Bardur Arantsson wrote:
On 12/29/2011 08:47 PM, Steve Horne wrote:
On 29/12/2011 19:21, Heinrich Apfelmus wrote:
BTW - why use an IO action for random number generation? There's a perfectly good pure generator. It's probably handy to treat it monadically to sequence the generator state/seed/whatever but random number generation can be completely pure.
*Pseudo* random number generation can of course be pure (though threading the state would be tedious and error-prone). If you want truly random numbers you cannot avoid IO (the monad). On the threading the state thing - it doesn't matter whether it's the IO monad or the State monad (a perfect wrapper for the seed).
For where-does-the-entropy-come-from, though, yes - I guess you're right.