Random data in demos and reproducibility

[Rik]

12/14/10

When trying to compare plots between gnuplot, FLTK, and Matlab recently I
had a difficult time because the data was different for each plot.  For a
particular example, see the stairs demo at
http://octave.sourceforge.net/compare_plots/.  Would it be advisable to
either use a fixed set of data embedded in the demo or save, initialize,
and restore the random seed in order to get identical plots?  If yes, is
there a preference for which approach to take?

For the documentation plots produced by the scripts in doc/interpreter/*.m
I had already taken the approach of initializing the random seed.  In this
case there was no danger of disturbing a user's random stream and so I
didn't have to bother with saving/restoring state.

--Rik