From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>
Subject: Re: commit 7719734dd7 org-compat.el: New compatibility function
 `org-random'
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:24:09 -0400
Message-ID: <3345.1346955849@alphaville.americas.hpqcorp.net>
References: <87k3w7dtt2.fsf@Rainer.invalid> <87bohj3vx0.fsf@altern.org>
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In-Reply-To: Message from Bastien <bzg@altern.org>
	of "Thu\, 06 Sep 2012 19\:26\:03 +0200." <87bohj3vx0.fsf@altern.org>
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To: Bastien <bzg@altern.org>
Cc: Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de>, emacs-orgmode@gnu.org

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:

> Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de> writes:
>=20
> > Sorry, but that macro doesn't call `random=C2=B4 appropriately at all.=
=20=20
>=20
> The real problem is (random t) in previous versions of org-id.el.
>=20
> Do you mean this should be (random) instead of (random t) in those
> versions?  Why?  If so, we can simply get rid of the compatibility
> macro and use (random).
>=20
> > No package should ever use `(random t)=C2=B4 at all and especially not
> > repeatedly.
>=20
> I thought (random t) was okay especially because related functions
> (e.g. org-id-new) are *never* repeated at regular intervals.
>=20
> Besides, (random t) is documented in Emacs <24.3 and XEmacs.
>=20

My understanding is that (random t) is called *once* to seed the RNG -
after that you use (random) or (random N) - where N is a positive integer -
to get the next (pseudo) random number in the sequence (scaled to fit in
[0, N) in the second case).

Nick