From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2004-08-14T15:43:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Random variable library?

On Friday, August 13, 2004, 5:41:22 PM, Mauricio wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 11:26:22AM +0900, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
>> The work I'm doing now doesn't strictly require, but would benefit from a
>> random number generator that:
>>  - obeyed the distribution you want, with the parameters you want

> You can do that easily by taking a uniform random variable and feeding
> it into the distribution function you want.

Thanks for the tip.  How do you write a distribution function?

>>  - spat out numbers between a given minimum and maximum

> like   min + rand(max-min+1)   ?

Yes, but what about: "give me a normal distribution between 0 and 10"?
That probably doesn't make sense without some extra parameters, but
they can be defaults/derived.

Then I'd like to be able to bias it as well, if that makes sense.  So
you can have a "normal" distribution between 0 and 10, biased so that
the center is on 3 instead of 5.

IF that makes sense... :/

Gavin