https://abstractnonsense.xyz/tags/statistics/Recent content in Statistics on Abstract NonsenseHugoen-AUhello@abstractnonsense.xyz (Yossi Frenkel)hello@abstractnonsense.xyz (Yossi Frenkel)Mon, 18 May 2026 10:21:38 +1000https://abstractnonsense.xyz/microblog/2026-05-17-pseudorandom-number-generation-in-jax/Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000hello@abstractnonsense.xyz (Yossi Frenkel)https://abstractnonsense.xyz/microblog/2026-05-17-pseudorandom-number-generation-in-jax/<p>Recently I&rsquo;ve been working on a statistics library in <a href="https://github.com/typst/typst">Typst</a> called <a href="https://github.com/stochastical/distro"><code>distro</code></a><label for="fn0" class="footnote-trigger">*</label><input type="checkbox" id="fn0" class="footnote-checkbox" /><small class="footnote-aside" id="fn0">More to come soon</small>. Typst is architected with an <a href="https://github.com/typst/typst/blob/main/docs/dev/architecture.md#compilation">incremental</a> <a href="https://github.com/typst/comemo/">compiler</a>, and pairs it with pure functions<label for="fn1" class="footnote-trigger">*</label><input type="checkbox" id="fn1" class="footnote-checkbox" /><small class="footnote-aside" id="fn1">Almost all functions in Typst are pure, with a <a href="https://typst.app/docs/reference/foundations/function/#:~:text=Note%20on%20function%20purity">few exceptions</a></small> to facilitate snappy real-time compilation.</p> <p>The problem is, what to do about random number generation when your functions are supposed to be referentially transparent? Well, thankfully that&rsquo;s a solved problem with a neat solution. For instance, <a href="https://docs.jax.dev/en/latest/random-numbers.html#random-numbers-in-jax">JAX relies</a> on an explicit &lsquo;key&rsquo; value, that is consumed by the PRNG, and returns an updated state that is then passed back into the PRNG to generate the next random sample.</p>