hap.random: a new random number library for D

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Sunday, 13 July 2014 at 15:31:51 UTC, bearophile wrote:
> So creating a random number generator can't be @nogc?

I think even as things are there is nothing stopping the user 
from manually allocating and using "emplace" to create an RNG 
instance without relying on the GC.  However, even if not, I 
think this would be less of a problem, as in general things like 
RNG instances can be expected to be allocated "high up" in the 
program and passed down into the inner parts where @nogc becomes 
a concern.

What really matters to me is stuff like Sample and Cover, where 
we can readily expect that they may be called in inner loops of 
the program, and so having lots of allocations via "new" would be 
a big problem.  So, it follows that the current helper functions 
(sample, cover, etc.) need to be rewritten at some point with 
this in mind.

It's not a problem I propose to solve for the 1.0.0 release, but 
it is a problem that needs addressing in the long run.

Out of curiosity, do you have any ideas or suggestions for how to 
address the requirement for RNGs and related functionality to be 
reference types, together with the wish to support @nogc ... ?  
Preferably in a way that avoids the user having to explicitly 
indicate destruction?