It's unmentioned in the article, but Trevor Blackwell's PhD thesis, Applications of Randomness in System Performance Measurement [1] was advocating this in 1998:
This thesis presents and analyzes a simple principle for building systems: that there should be a random component in all arbitrary decisions. If no randomness is used, system performance can vary widely and unpredictably due to small changes in the system workload or configuration. This makes measurements hard to reproduce and less meaningful as predictors of performance that could be expected in similar situations.
Could the question mark in the HN version of the title be removed? It makes it read as a bit silly.
k_g_b_ · 4m ago
In my experience it's a common mistake of non-native English speakers, of native speakers of Slavic languages in particular. I see it often at work with titles starting with an interrogative word like "how".
This thesis presents and analyzes a simple principle for building systems: that there should be a random component in all arbitrary decisions. If no randomness is used, system performance can vary widely and unpredictably due to small changes in the system workload or configuration. This makes measurements hard to reproduce and less meaningful as predictors of performance that could be expected in similar situations.
[1] https://tlb.org/docs/thesis.pdf
In case anyone is curious, the way to phrase it as a question would be, "How does randomness improve algorithms?"