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all: decide on the hyphenation of pseudorandom vs pseudo-random? #25959

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bradfitz opened this issue Jun 19, 2018 · 5 comments
Open

all: decide on the hyphenation of pseudorandom vs pseudo-random? #25959

bradfitz opened this issue Jun 19, 2018 · 5 comments
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@bradfitz
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The docs for crypto/rand contain both "pseudorandom" and "pseudo-random" for the same part of speech.

Decide which to use.

Also, the package doc says:

Package rand implements a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator.

But the Reader says:

Reader is a global, shared instance of a cryptographically strong pseudo-random generator.

Is it cryptographically "strong" or is it "secure"? Can we pick a word there too?

Or can we just remove "pseudorandom" altogether? I feel like it makes it sound too much like math/rand.

Can we just say "cryptographically secure random number generator"?

/cc @FiloSottile @agl @ianlancetaylor
@bradfitz bradfitz added this to the Go1.11 milestone Jun 19, 2018
@ianlancetaylor
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CC @robpike

@smasher164
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I see what you meant by your comment now :)
It looks like "pseudorandom" is a valid English word:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseudorandom
Additionally, words with the prefix "pseudo-" are apparently not hyphenated:
http://www.mit.edu/course/21/21.guide/hyphen.htm

Secure vs Strong: If we had to choose, I'd go with secure since even the man page for /dev/[u]random mentions the following under "Usage":

the output is cryptographically secure against attackers without local root access as soon as it is reloaded in the boot sequence

TLDR, we may want to mention that crypto/rand implements a CSPRNG (cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator).

@robpike
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robpike commented Jun 19, 2018 •
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I prefer pseudo-random and that's what math/rand uses, so that's my vote.

Generally, in English phrases become adjectives by hyphenation, and then after a long period of consistent usage the hyphens drop, but I don't believe pseudo-random is ready to lose its hyphen yet.

@FiloSottile
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"cryptographically secure random number generator"

Too many people go from that "pseudo" to "but I need real randomness!" and then you end up with /dev/random.

@gopherbot
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Change https://golang.org/cl/119875 mentions this issue: crypto/rand: make documentation consistent between package comment and Reader

@bradfitz bradfitz modified the milestones: Go1.11, Unplanned Jun 20, 2018
@bradfitz bradfitz changed the title crypto/rand: decide on the hyphenation of pseudorandom vs pseudo-random all: decide on the hyphenation of pseudorandom vs pseudo-random? Jun 20, 2018
gopherbot pushed a commit that referenced this issue Jun 20, 2018
@bradfitz
crypto/rand: make documentation consistent between package comment an…
f549af6 
…d Reader

Updates #25959

Change-Id: I9ae64b216ab5807718db0db98b32de1dc5fa4bec
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/119875
Reviewed-by: Rob Pike <r@golang.org>
Reviewed-by: Filippo Valsorda <filippo@golang.org>
@ALTree ALTree added the NeedsDecision Feedback is required from experts, contributors, and/or the community before a change can be made. label Feb 3, 2020
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