Re: isn't variance adjusted patching horribly dangerous?

       Philip Martin <philip@codematters.co.uk>:

       Traditional patch works without having access to the full text
       of all the files involved, it only has one full text. The
       multiple merge implied by variance adjusted patching involves
       access to all the full texts, the line numbers can be adjusted
       and the hunks applied without resorting to the fuzzy context
       matching used by patch. It's not clear to me why one would
       want to use context at all if the full texts are available.

Because textual patching is semantically insensitive, but context
provides a partial (but significant) compensation for that.

Indeed -- the revision history enables tricks like adjusting hunk line
numbers or tweaking context in such a way to help figure out where a
conflicting hunk would otherwise go -- but context also helps to
avoid blindly applying inappropriate changes. That's why I like the
"soft conflict" idea.

-t

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Received on Wed Apr 9 04:54:49 2003