Task: Probabilistic choice
C++: #include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <utility>
#include <algorithm>
#include <ctime>
#include <iomanip>

int main( ) {
   typedef std::vector<std::pair<std::string, double> >::const_iterator SPI ;
   typedef std::vector<std::pair<std::string , double> > ProbType ;
   ProbType probabilities ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "aleph" , 1/5.0 ) ) ; 
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "beth" , 1/6.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "gimel" , 1/7.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "daleth" , 1/8.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "he" , 1/9.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "waw" , 1/10.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "zayin" , 1/11.0 ) ) ;
   probabilities.push_back( std::make_pair( "heth" , 1759/27720.0 ) ) ;
   std::vector<std::string> generated ; 
   std::vector<int> decider ; 
   for ( int i = 0 ; i < probabilities.size( ) ; i++ ) {
      if ( i == 0 ) {
	 decider.push_back( 27720 * (probabilities[ i ].second) ) ;
      }
      else {
	 int number = 0 ;
	 for ( int j = 0 ; j < i ; j++ ) {
	    number +=  27720 * ( probabilities[ j ].second ) ;
	 }
	 number += 27720 * probabilities[ i ].second ;
	 decider.push_back( number ) ;
      }
   }
   srand( time( 0 ) ) ;
   for ( int i = 0 ; i < 1000000 ; i++ ) {
      int randnumber = rand( ) % 27721 ;
      int j = 0 ; 
      while ( randnumber > decider[ j ] ) 
	 j++ ;
      generated.push_back( ( probabilities[ j ]).first ) ;
   }
   std::cout << "letter  frequency attained   frequency expected\n" ;
   for ( SPI i = probabilities.begin( ) ; i != probabilities.end( ) ; i++ ) {
      std::cout << std::left << std::setw( 8 ) << i->first ;
      int found = std::count ( generated.begin( ) , generated.end( ) , i->first ) ;
      std::cout << std::left << std::setw( 21 ) << found / 1000000.0 ;
      std::cout << std::left << std::setw( 17 ) << i->second << '\n' ;
   }
   return 0 ;
}

Python: import random, bisect

def probchoice(items, probs):
  
  
  prob_accumulator = 0
  accumulator = []
  for p in probs:
    prob_accumulator += p
    accumulator.append(prob_accumulator)
    
  while True:
    r = random.random()
    yield items[bisect.bisect(accumulator, r)]

def probchoice2(items, probs, bincount=10000):
  
  
  bins = []
  for item,prob in zip(items, probs):
    bins += [item]*int(bincount*prob)
  while True:
    yield random.choice(bins)
      
      
def tester(func=probchoice, items='good bad ugly'.split(),
                    probs=[0.5, 0.3, 0.2],
                    trials = 100000
                    ):
  def problist2string(probs):
    
    return ",".join('%8.6f' % (p,) for p in probs)
  
  from collections import defaultdict
   
  counter = defaultdict(int)
  it = func(items, probs)
  for dummy in xrange(trials):
    counter[it.next()] += 1
  print "\n
  print "Trials:              ", trials
  print "Items:               ", ' '.join(items)
  print "Target probability:  ", problist2string(probs)
  print "Attained probability:", problist2string(
    counter[x]/float(trials) for x in items)

if __name__ == '__main__':
  items = 'aleph beth gimel daleth he waw zayin heth'.split()
  probs = [1/(float(n)+5) for n in range(len(items))]
  probs[-1] = 1-sum(probs[:-1])
  tester(probchoice, items, probs, 1000000)
  tester(probchoice2, items, probs, 1000000)