diff-match-patch

I also researched the best diff algorithm. Google's diff-match-patch [1] library produce very good diffs for example. But I found that the best diffs are produced by wikidiff2 [2], the MediaWiki diff engine. Both engines produce word-by-word diff. [1]: https://github.com/google/diff-match-patch [2]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikidiff2

Well, you are right, but there would still be some advantages to submodules: 1. Check the files hash themselves: while you can definitely put the commit ID in the URL, nothing prevents the remote server (though unlikely if github) to answer with another version of the file (and could even do so selectively for your build server). 2. Simple upgrade path: with submodules, you can just `cd` into them and run `git pull` or `git checkout v11.5.2`, and git itself could inform you that a newer version is available if tracking a branch. I also agree with the contribution aspect, though it is less important in some cases. I take the latest example I have in mind where this could have been useful: For integration into F-Droid, RiotX needed not to include binary artifacts of a library, but the source itself. The source repository is quite big (multi