[fpc-pascal] Re: Why is Random(255) some 529x slower compared to Delphi7?

[Ralf A. Quint]

At 10:50 AM 12/8/2011, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
>On 8 December 2011 18:41, Florian Klaempfl  wrote:
> >
> > And? The conclusion is what we concluded years ago: be as delphi
> > compatible as possible else people start to cry soon or later. The funny
> > thing is only that this time the people cry who didn't draw this
> > conclusion yet.
>
>I'll be the first to admit, I think most of this "delphi
>compatibility" is crap. But there is a BIG difference between being
>compatible, and being totally unusable. Clearly many here have listed
>that they use Random in a recursion function, and in such a case the
>HUGE speed penalty makes the current Random() implementation
>unsuitable and unusable.
>
>Will an implementation like Waldo Kitty suggested be a suitable
>compromise? If so, I'll go ahead and create a patch.

Why a patch at all? Sorry, but to me, this is all but a storm in a teacup...

If Jürgen's "test" application is intended to 
measure "transfer" speed, the test is 
fundamentally flawed when it would depend on the speed of data generation.

So why doesn't he implement his own random 
function for his specific needs? That satisfies 
his special usage and leaves everyone else, who 
doesn't seem to mind/care with the default 
function that provides greater "randomness".
For all of my applications, I definitely prefer 
the later and can't think of a single instance 
where the implementation of the random function 
in FPC makes any significant difference in 
performance. For me, I prefer" rather safe than sorry (fast)"...

Ralf