[Bioc-devel] bpparam Non-deterministic Default

[Spencer Nystrom]

This GitHub issue, although lengthy, discusses some of the technical
difficulties associated with pulling from the random stream. I've linked to
a comment from Martin that discusses this in particular, but there's other
good stuff in the rest of the issue.

https://github.com/Bioconductor/BiocParallel/pull/140#issuecomment-921627153

   -Spencer


On Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 10:41 PM Ellis Patrick <ellis.patrick using sydney.edu.au>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Sorry I'm not an advanced user. What is the disadvantage of pulling the
> default from .Random.seed? As a non-advanced user it took me way too long
> to figure out that set.seed() doesn't work.
>
> Thanks,
> Ellis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bioc-devel <bioc-devel-bounces using r-project.org> On Behalf Of Spencer
> Nystrom
> Sent: Saturday, 27 November 2021 2:15 PM
> To: Dario Strbenac <dstr7320 using uni.sydney.edu.au>
> Cc: bioc-devel using r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Bioc-devel] bpparam Non-deterministic Default
>
> I agree with Martin. I think it is worse for beginners to falsely believe
> their results are deterministic when they are not. This sounds like a
> problem that should be solved with documentation and maybe even examples of
> setting the RNG seed manually.
>
> I also worry about advanced users and pollution of RNG seed global state
> by having packages assign their own seed. Just sounds like a mess for
> little gain.
>
>   -Spencer
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 26, 2021, 7:00 PM Dario Strbenac via Bioc-devel <
> bioc-devel using r-project.org> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > Might it instead made possible to set an RNGseed value by specifying
> > one to bpparam but still get the automated back-end selection, so that
> > it could easily be set to a particular value in an R package?
> >
> > --------------------------------------
> > Dario Strbenac
> > University of Sydney
> > Camperdown NSW 2050
> > Australia
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bioc-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel.
> > ethz.ch
> >
>
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