I'm not convinced that the Fisher-Yates shuffle actually has very much theory with regard to random order involved at all.

Well, you are wrong. The first publication of the Fisher-Yates shuffle dates from 1938. It's example 12 in the book Statistical Tables, whose authors are R.A. Fisher and F.Yates.

It was also discussed by R. Durstenfeld, in 1964. Communications of the ACM, volume 7, pp 420.

And of course Donald Knuth mentions it, in Volume 2 of The Art of Computer Programming. In the third edition, it's algorithm P, section 3.4.2 on page 145.

Abigail

In reply to Re: Fisher-Yates theory by Abigail-II
in thread Fisher-Yates theory by Anonymous Monk

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