Random number generators

The libraries in this subsection are as follows:

• MonadRandom: Simple monadic interface for supplying random numbers. Uses System.Random. It's rather slow and not very secure.

• mwc-random: Very fast pseudo-random number generation. Probably not cryptographically secure.

• random-fu: Good support for sampling a wide range of different distributions. Good quality but not terribly slow either.

• mersenne-random: Pseudo-random numbers using a Mersenne Twister. Probably fastest RNG for Haskell when SIMD is supported.

Random numbers have multiple applications, from simulations to cryptography. Random number generators come with different trade-offs that suit different applications. Others are very fast and not really that random, while others are slower but cryptographically secure.

Haskell doesn't have a shortage of pseudo-random RNG libraries. Cryptographically secure random numbers are hard, however; your best bet is probably in HsOpenSSL or cryptonite.

For pseudo-random number...