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Re: random musings [message #53125 is a reply to message #53124]

Mon, 19 March 2007 13:58

news.verizon.net
Messages: 47
Registered: August 2003

Member

On Mar 19, 4:30 pm, Christopher Thom <c...@oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> this morning I started writing some monte carlo code, in which I'm
> generating random arrays, and scaling/shifting them to fit the (gaussian)
> distribution parameters I need. One thing is not clear in the online help:
> Which random function is "better"? Should I be using randomn() or
> randomu()?

I believe these functions are identical. In the ancient days, IDL
had two types of randomn number generators: RANDOMU, for a uniform
distribution, and RANDOMN for a normal distribution. When addition
distributions (e.g. binomial, Poisson, Gamma) were added (in V5.0 I
believe), RSI chose against adding additional RANDOM* functions, and
instead made all the distributions available from either RANDOMU or
RANDOMN.

This is one of those case where IDL suffers from having a long
history.

--Wayne

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[Message index]

		Re: random musings By: Paolo Grigis on Tue, 20 March 2007 01:53
		Re: random musings By: Christopher Thom on Mon, 19 March 2007 21:41
		Re: random musings By: news.verizon.net on Mon, 19 March 2007 13:58
		Re: random musings By: news.qwest.net on Mon, 19 March 2007 13:37

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