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Date: Wed, 12 May 2021 21:27:12 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Discussion: Object-scoped RNG
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

On 12/05/2021 15:39, Go Kudo wrote:
> I haven't decided whether to include it in the next RFC, but we think we
> need to deprecate all functions that use RNGs with global state (shuffle(),
> array_rand(), str_shuffle()) in the future.


I don't understand why that would be necessary or helpful. The majority 
of code using those functions does not need repeatable or configurable 
results, and would not benefit from a more complex API.

If you're just deciding which order to show the user some cute pictures 
of cats, shuffle($array) is much more appropriate than (new 
RNG\Randomiser(RNG\MT15593))->shuffle($array) or whatever the API ends 
up looking like.

I can however see an argument for deprecating srand/mt_srand: if you 
want a reproducible pseudo-random sequence, create an object to manage 
its state; if you don't, leave the engine to manage it for you however 
it wants. The way the seed was initialised would then be entirely an 
implementation detail, just like the algorithm, which already changed in 
7.0.

Regards,

-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]