[Numpy-discussion] random and RandomArray

[Bruce Southey]

Hi, 
I was browsing through some of the code and realized that certain random number 
generators occur in both the Python random module and RandomArray.  
 
The random module uses C code to get a scalar uniform random number that is 
modified in Python by other generators to get random numbers from other 
distributions. In RandomArray everything is done in the C code - obviously this 
is way faster especially for arrays. 
 
In the long term, would it make sense to get use the same random number 
generators in both random and RandomArray? 
By this, I am thinking along the lines that both random and RandomArray would 
call the same C code. This would require more changes in random than 
RandomArray but would minimise duplicate code and update RandomArray. 
 
So I was wondering what the thoughts of people on this list are on this before 
even considering this further. 
 
Regards 
Bruce Southey