Change random.seed() so that it can get at the full range of possible
internal states. Put the old .seed() (which could only get at about
the square root of the # of possibilities) under the new name .whseed(),
for bit-level compatibility with older versions. This occurred to me
while reviewing effbot's book (he found himself stumbling over .seed()
more than once there ...).
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 5c633f0..85d106f 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -32,6 +32,16 @@
each thread, then using .jumpahead() to force each instance to use a
non-overlapping segment of the full period.
+- random.py's seed() function is new. For bit-for-bit compatibility with
+ prior releases, use the whseed function instead. The new seed function
+ addresses two problems: (1) The old function couldn't produce more than
+ about 2**24 distinct internal states; the new one about 2**45 (the best
+ that can be done in the Wichmann-Hill generator). (2) The old function
+ sometimes produced identical internal states when passed distinct
+ integers, and there was no simple way to predict when that would happen;
+ the new one guarantees to produce distinct internal states for all
+ arguments in [0, 27814431486576L).
+
Windows changes
- Build procedure: the zlib project is built in a different way that