LaTeX.org

Interesting. Thanks for the tip. I'll read up on Lua.

If I end up agreeing with you, that the TeX build env is the wrong tool, how might I construct an alternative scheme? Say I do the calculation externally. Then, what is the best way to give TeX the results for type setting? Do others have ...

I'm not brand new to TeX, but I want do start doing more complicated things. I've been looking at techniques for having TeX do calculations, rather than me having to do them in an external tool and then type in the result. But there are too many different ways to do it. I don't know which to choose ...

Have you looked at pgfmath which provides the 'random' package (and others) that do PRNG stuff? Is that what you are looking for?

I've never used this, myself, but ran across it a few times thinking I could use it for something in the future.