suggestion/request for random sampling from a List (Collection)

[Rick Riolo]

I very often find myself writing codes to pick an
agent out of a list (and sometimes other collections) 
at random (ie a uniform random sample with replacement). 
It would be nice if List (and perhaps other collections) had 
a method
  myA = [myList getRandom];
To support this, one would be required to tell the list
what generator to use, so that it would be under the user's control
(in particular, so seed/sequence would be replicable).

If there are others who would like this, perhaps it could
be put on some "To-Add" list for the core libs.

thanks.
 - r

ps maybe I should just do this with a C macro...
   still, for agent based models, it seems like a 
   pretty common action, so it would be generally useful in the core.

Rick Riolo                       address@hidden
Program for Study of Complex Systems (PSCS)
4068 Randall Lab     University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI 48109-1120
http://pscs.physics.lsa.umich.edu/PEOPLE/rlr-home.html


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