If you were to draw independent samples from the generator, what would happen would be exactly what you're expecting:
In [1]: import random
In [2]: random.seed(1)
In [3]: [random.randint(0, 99) for _ in range(10)]
Out[3]: [13, 84, 76, 25, 49, 44, 65, 78, 9, 2]
In [4]: random.seed(1)
In [5]: [random.randint(0, 99) for _ in range(40)]
Out[5]: [13, 84, 76, 25, 49, 44, 65, 78, 9, 2, 83, 43 ...]
As you can see, the first ten numbers are indeed the same.
It is the fact that random.sample()
is drawing samples without replacement that's getting in the way. To understand how these algorithms work, see Reservoir Sampling. In essence what happens is that later samples can push earlier samples out of the result set.
One alternative might be to shuffle a list of indices and then take either 10 or 40 first elements:
In [1]: import random
In [2]: a = range(0,100)
In [3]: random.shuffle(a)
In [4]: a[:10]
Out[4]: [48, 27, 28, 4, 67, 76, 98, 68, 35, 80]
In [5]: a[:40]
Out[5]: [48, 27, 28, 4, 67, 76, 98, 68, 35, 80, ...]