<story><title>A new core playlist for VLC 4</title><url>https://blog.rom1v.com/2019/05/a-new-core-playlist-for-vlc-4/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PetitPrince</author><text>&amp;gt; The randomizer stores a single vector containing all the items of the playlist. This vector is not shuffled at once. Instead, steps of the Fisher-Yates algorithm are executed one-by-one on demand.&lt;p&gt;Fisher-Yates is the generalization of what is known as the &amp;quot;7-bag randomizer&amp;quot; in the Tetris community (same problem: you want to distribute 7 pieces randomly but want to avoid repetition). It&amp;#x27;s funny how what you think as inconsequential trivia about your niche hobby can turn out in unexpected places !</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Normal_gaussian</author><text>Fisher-Yates was one of the first algorithms my CS course exposed me to; nicknamed the knuth shuffle, not 100% why but it is in TAOCP.&lt;p&gt;I implement it relatively frequently (~once a year) as it is often quicker to write than find an implementation.&lt;p&gt;Surveying some peers I was very surprised to find they weren&amp;#x27;t aware of it!</text></comment>
<story><title>A new core playlist for VLC 4</title><url>https://blog.rom1v.com/2019/05/a-new-core-playlist-for-vlc-4/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PetitPrince</author><text>&amp;gt; The randomizer stores a single vector containing all the items of the playlist. This vector is not shuffled at once. Instead, steps of the Fisher-Yates algorithm are executed one-by-one on demand.&lt;p&gt;Fisher-Yates is the generalization of what is known as the &amp;quot;7-bag randomizer&amp;quot; in the Tetris community (same problem: you want to distribute 7 pieces randomly but want to avoid repetition). It&amp;#x27;s funny how what you think as inconsequential trivia about your niche hobby can turn out in unexpected places !</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vanderZwan</author><text>Looks like he reinvented shuffle vectors on his own. I think a lot of people have over the years, but crazy enough nobody bothered to publish it until February this year! Maybe it felt too intuitive?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;observablehq.com&amp;#x2F;@jobleonard&amp;#x2F;shuffle-vectors&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;observablehq.com&amp;#x2F;@jobleonard&amp;#x2F;shuffle-vectors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;abs&amp;#x2F;1902.04738&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;abs&amp;#x2F;1902.04738&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>