Re: gaussian distribution pgbench

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
> Seems that in the review so far, Fabien has focused mainly in the
> mathematical properties of the new random number generation.  That seems
> perfectly fine, but no comment has been made about the chosen UI for the
> feature.  Per the few initial messages in the thread, in the patch as
> submitted you ask for a gaussian random number by using \setgaussian,
> and exponential via \setexp.  Is this the right UI?  Currently you get
> an evenly distributed number with \setrandom.  There is nothing that
> makes it obvious on \setgaussian by itself that it produces random
> numbers.  Perhaps we should simply add a new argument to \setrandom,
> instead of creating new commands for each distribution?  I would guess
> that, in the future, we're going to want other distributions as well.

+1 for an argument to \setrandom instead of separate commands.

> Not sure what it would look like; perhaps
> \setrandom foo 1 10 gaussian

FWIW, I think this style is sufficient; the others seem overcomplicated
for not much gain.  I'm not strongly attached to that position though.
        regards, tom lane