Generating good random numbers by computer is hard. With a state-of-the-art PRNG, you still need entropy sources. Those are extremely non-portable, and require low-level stuff that's not easily done in Perl.

So, I assert that some support ought to be built into the perl interpreter kernel, or in a Standard module that works on every platform.

The reason I speculate that it be in the kernel rather than a module is the availability of a cheap entropy source: the high-resolution time at which the interpreter's main loop starts the next perl instruction; and because sources need to be polled at intervals, and instead of doing more threads the main interpreter can do so as it returns to the main loop.

I'm not advocating this yet, just tossing my musings into the ring. Any other thoughts on the matter?

—John

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