RE: Library_submissions and Call for Maintainers

2 Mar 2015

      |  the SplitMix algorithm of Steele, Lea and Flood [1].
|  This algorithm, now included in Java JDK8, claims that it is a
|  "version of the purely functional API used in the Haskell library for
|  over a decade, but SplitMix is faster and produces pseudorandom
|  sequences of higher quality.”

Moreover, SplitMix has a published paper to describe it, which is massively better (in a tricky area) than an un-documented pile of code. I knew that Guy was working on this but I didn't know it was now published.  Excellent!

I would love to see this happen

Simon

|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of
|  Gershom B
|  Sent: 01 March 2015 05:27
|  To: Edward Kmett; Haskell Libraries
|  Subject: Re: Library_submissions and Call for Maintainers
|  
|  On February 28, 2015 at 11:39:48 PM, Edward Kmett (ekmett@gmail.com)
|  wrote:
|  > * random
|  >
|  > We've had some truly excellent work done over the last couple of
|  years
|  > on how to deal with "splitting" a random number generator in a
|  > cryptographically sound manner. I spent some time cleaning up a few
|  > outstanding issues for this package personally over the summer, but
|  > have not had nearly enough time to devote to the issue of how to
|  > integrate the outcome of the recent research on splitting, while
|  > simultaneously caring about performance and soundness.
|  
|  With regards to random, rather than making System.Random
|  crypographically sound (which, as I understand it, could require
|  changes to the API), there is a “halfway house” approach —
|  implementation of the SplitMix algorithm of Steele, Lea and Flood [1].
|  This algorithm, now included in Java JDK8, claims that it is a
|  "version of the purely functional API used in the Haskell library for
|  over a decade, but SplitMix is faster and produces pseudorandom
|  sequences of higher quality.”

RE: Library_submissions and Call for Maintainers

Simon Peyton Jones