> it might just up and decide to include numbers outside of that range, or (with a nonzero probability) it might decide to list animals instead of numbers
For example, all of the replies I've gotten that are formatted as "Here is the random number you asked for: forty-two."
Which is both absolutely technically correct and very completely missing the point, and it might decide to do that one time in a hundred and crash your whole stack.
There are ways around that, but it's a headache you don't get with rand() or the equivalent for whatever problem you're solving.
For example, all of the replies I've gotten that are formatted as "Here is the random number you asked for: forty-two."
Which is both absolutely technically correct and very completely missing the point, and it might decide to do that one time in a hundred and crash your whole stack.
There are ways around that, but it's a headache you don't get with rand() or the equivalent for whatever problem you're solving.