PEpebblexe·Mar 29, 2017
I remember seeing this posted here and I was really impressed by it: https://github.com/yinwang0/ydiff
In Making a good diff algorithmyinwang0
ydiff
Emacs Lisp2013–2017
yinwang0 / ydiff
ydiff
A structural comparison tool for Lisp family languages, with experimental C++, JS support
4Distinct people
4Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
193GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A structural comparison tool for Lisp family languages, with experimental C++, JS support
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by year4 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-04-25 15:20:53 UTC to 2017-03-29 14:30:11 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
4 sourcesreminds me of this
https://github.com/yinwang0/ydiff
In Quasi-Polynomial Algorithm for Graph IsomorphismOne of the mantras of functional programming is get your data structure right, and everything else falls into place. As an experienced functional programmer, I see this in practice every time I program--even a slightly "wrong" type pollutes the code dramatically.
The idea then with structure/tree/semantic editors is two-fold.
First, text is obviously the wrong the wrong data structure for programs, so even if people manage to provide fairly good support with the "modern IDE", the effort it takes is staggering. And still details like files, character encodings, god damn tabs vs. spaces, and terminals leak through. One can't help but wonder how much farther they would get were their efforts directed more efficiently. Look at this https://github.com/yinwang0/ydiff for example, blows text diff out of the water.
Second the idea is maybe text i
Read the rest
s the "wrong data structure" for programmers too, not just tool-smiths. I admit there are bunch more psychological/neurological aspects that make the answer less obvious. But I see no reason why not to keep an open mind until a polished tree editor exists for empirical testing. Even if text is in someways better, the improved functionality a tree editor offers could offset that dramatically.
A tool for structural comparison of programs
1 points · Open discussion