id,summary,reporter,owner,description,type,status,milestone,component,version,severity,resolution,keywords,cc
3545,Improve random documentation,Steven Watanabe,No-Maintainer,"Robert Ramey wrote:

Since you asked.  I think my problem is in the very first section
under the title ""Boost Random Number Library"".

I expected to find and example like:

{{{
normal_distribution nd<int>(mean, standard_deviation)
...
int random_number = nd();
...
}}}

Of course I realized pretty soon that I wasn't going to find that.
So then I looked at the random_demo.cpp which was
helpful and led me to look at library headers which wasn't
all that helpful.

Personally I would have found a small tutorial helpful. for example:

The random number library is composed of:

""generators"" which generate random numbers and
""distributors"" which transform output from a ""generator""
into a particular distribution:

A small complete example (from random_demo.cpp)

{{{
// simulate rolling a die 10 times

// construct a random simple random number generator
boost::minstd_rand random_number_generator;

// construct a uniform distribution for integers 1 through 6
boost::uniform<int> uniform_distribution(1,6);

// hook the above together to create a die?
// I'm not sure what to call this ""variate_generator"" didn't help me at all
boost::variate_generator<boost::minstd_rand &, boost::uniform<int> & > die()

// throw the die 10 times
for(int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
    std::out << die() << '\n'
}}}

Notice the lack of typedefs and other stuff to make things
more abstract"".  I eliminated these to make the example
less ... uh abstract.

To summarize, a little bit more introduction would have helped
me get going faster.
",Bugs,closed,Boost 1.41.0,random,Boost 1.40.0,Problem,fixed,,