[erlang-questions] RNG algorithm choice for uniform natural numbers

[Krzysztof Jurewicz]

I’m looking for an algorithm to perform a transparent, reproducible generation of an uniform sequence of natural numbers. There are three RNG algorithms documented in the rand module:

• Xoroshiro116+. According to the linked page at http://xoshiro.di.unimi.it/ , it is suitable only for floating point numbers, so it doesn’t fit. Moreover, the page actually describes an algorithm with 64-bit precision, while rand implements a variant with 56-bit precision. It looks like the latter is implemented only in Erlang, so there is little practical interoperability between languages.
• Xorshift1024*. It fails the BigCrush test according to https://lemire.me/blog/2017/09/15/the-xorshift1024-random-number-generator-fails-bigcrush/ .
• Xorshift116+. The comment about 58-bit precision being rare applies (according to https://github.com/jj1bdx/emprng/ , “the original exsplus was Xorshift128+”). Xorshift128+ fails the BigCrush test, so I presume that xorshift116+ fails it too.

So… is there any particular reason for the rand module to not implement xoshiro256**, which is more widespread than 58-bit precision algorithms and, according to its creators, “has excellent (sub-ns) speed, a state space (256 bits) that is large enough for any parallel application, and it passes all tests we are aware of”?