7 ms·

> There are countless scenarios where you want deterministic random numbers (for testing if nothing else), so std's distributions are unusable. Fortunately you

> There are countless scenarios where you want deterministic random numbers (for testing if nothing else), so std's distributions are unusable. Fortunately you can just plug in Boost's implementation. I don't understand what's your complain. If you're already plugging in alternative implementations,what stops you from actually stubbing these random number generators with any realization at all?

akira2501 2y ago
It's a compromised and goofy implementation with lots of warts. What's the point it in having a /standard/ library then?
- chipdart 2y ago
  > It's a compromised and goofy implementation with lots of warts. I don't think this case qualifies as an example. I think the only goofy detail in the story is expecting a random number generator to be non-random and deterministic with the only conceivable usecase being poorly designed and implemented test fxtures. > What's the point it in having a /standard/ library then? The point of standardized components is to provide reusable elements that can be used across all platforms and implementations, thus saving on the development effort of upgrading and porting the code across implementations and even platforms. If you cannot design working software, that's not a problem you can pin on the tools you don't know how to use.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    > with the only conceivable usecase being poorly designed and implemented test fxtures. Reproducible pseudo-randomness is a necessity with fuzz testing. It is not a poor design approach when it is actually useful.
    - leni536 2y ago
      it is reproducible within a single standard library implementation, so usable for fuzz testing
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    > The point of standardized components is to provide reusable elements that can be used across all platforms and implementations, thus saving on the development effort of upgrading and porting the code across implementations and even platforms. It's a shame that C++'s "standardized" components ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT on different platforms. Some of the C++ standard requires per-platform implementation work. For example std::thread on Linux and Windows obviously must have a different implementation. However a super majority of the standard API is just vanilla C++ code. For example std::vector or std::unordered_map. The fact that the standard defines a spec which is then implemented numerous times is absurd, stupid, and bad. The specs are simultaneously over-constrained and under-constrained. It's a disaster.
    - gumby 2y ago
      I consider the current tradeoff to be a feature. It permits implementations to take advantage of target-specific affordances (your thread case is an example) as well as taking different implementation strategies (e.g. the small string optimization is different in libc++ and libstdc++). Also you may use another, independent standard library because you prefer its implementation decisions. Meanwhile they remain compatible at the source level.
      - Maxatar 2y ago
        Unlike in C, in C++ it is not possible to use an independent implementation of the standard library. Clang is compatible with GCC's standard library/libstdc++ and MSVC's standard library because the clang compiler explicitly supports them, but it's not possible to use clang's standard library with GCC in a standard conforming way or interchange GCC's with MSVC's standard library. There are some hacks that let you use some parts of libc++ with GCC by using the nostdlib flag, but this disables a lot of C++ functionality such as exception handling, RTTI, type traits. These features are in turn used by things like std::vector, std::map, etc... so you won't be able to use those classes either, and so on so forth...
        gumby 2y ago

akira2501 2y ago

It's a compromised and goofy implementation with lots of warts. What's the point it in having a /standard/ library then?

chipdart 2y ago
> It's a compromised and goofy implementation with lots of warts. I don't think this case qualifies as an example. I think the only goofy detail in the story is expecting a random number generator to be non-random and deterministic with the only conceivable usecase being poorly designed and implemented test fxtures. > What's the point it in having a /standard/ library then? The point of standardized components is to provide reusable elements that can be used across all platforms and implementations, thus saving on the development effort of upgrading and porting the code across implementations and even platforms. If you cannot design working software, that's not a problem you can pin on the tools you don't know how to use.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  > with the only conceivable usecase being poorly designed and implemented test fxtures. Reproducible pseudo-randomness is a necessity with fuzz testing. It is not a poor design approach when it is actually useful.
  - leni536 2y ago
    it is reproducible within a single standard library implementation, so usable for fuzz testing
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  > The point of standardized components is to provide reusable elements that can be used across all platforms and implementations, thus saving on the development effort of upgrading and porting the code across implementations and even platforms. It's a shame that C++'s "standardized" components ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT on different platforms. Some of the C++ standard requires per-platform implementation work. For example std::thread on Linux and Windows obviously must have a different implementation. However a super majority of the standard API is just vanilla C++ code. For example std::vector or std::unordered_map. The fact that the standard defines a spec which is then implemented numerous times is absurd, stupid, and bad. The specs are simultaneously over-constrained and under-constrained. It's a disaster.
  - gumby 2y ago
    I consider the current tradeoff to be a feature. It permits implementations to take advantage of target-specific affordances (your thread case is an example) as well as taking different implementation strategies (e.g. the small string optimization is different in libc++ and libstdc++). Also you may use another, independent standard library because you prefer its implementation decisions. Meanwhile they remain compatible at the source level.
    - Maxatar 2y ago
      Unlike in C, in C++ it is not possible to use an independent implementation of the standard library. Clang is compatible with GCC's standard library/libstdc++ and MSVC's standard library because the clang compiler explicitly supports them, but it's not possible to use clang's standard library with GCC in a standard conforming way or interchange GCC's with MSVC's standard library. There are some hacks that let you use some parts of libc++ with GCC by using the nostdlib flag, but this disables a lot of C++ functionality such as exception handling, RTTI, type traits. These features are in turn used by things like std::vector, std::map, etc... so you won't be able to use those classes either, and so on so forth...
      - gumby 2y ago