>Hi all!
>
>Looking through my copy of "Numerical Recipes" I read the following:
>
>"Never use a generator based on a linear congruential generator (LCG) or a multiplicative linear congruential generator (MLCG)"
>
>"Never use a generator with a period less 2**64 or any generator whose period is undisclosed"
>
>I use the rand() function to generate control groups (select 10.000 random customers from 100.000 ...) and reading the above gave me a stomach ache.
>
>Does anyone know more about rand() in VFP? I saw one MSDN post from Tamara that said "it seemed pretty good" But that leaves a lot of room open. Thanks in advance for your collective wisdom!

For day to day use of simple random sampling for very finite numbers (get 500 people for mailing) and so on I think it is fine. I would not do any Monte-Carlo-Studies based on it and not base a gambling site on it. I'ld also hesitate to compare very large samplings to artifical compare groups.

HTH

thomas

BTW: what line of work are you here in "my" town <g>?