Re: [PATCH 0/3] Teach Git about the patience diff algorithm

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jan 2, 2009, 16:42 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0901020833000.5086@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20090102105856.GB14691@localhost>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2009, Clemens Buchacher wrote:

>
> Only two choices, and I still get it wrong. The diffs should be labeled the
> other way around, of course.

Yes, this one is a real patience diff change, but it's also the same one that I've seen in the google fanboi findings. What google did _not_ show was any real-life examples, or anybody doing any critical analysis.

So I was hoping for something else than a single "in this case patience diff works really well". I was hoping to see what it does in real life. But when I tried it on the kernel archive, I get a core dump.

For example, in real life, files are bigger, and unique lines are not necessarily always common (generated files, whatever). Depending on unique line ordering may work fine in 95% of all cases, but do you know that it works fine in general? Does it work when 50% of lines are unique? I believe it does. Does ti work when just 1% of lines are unique? I just don't know.

And I haven't seen _any_ real critical analysis of it. Anywhere.

			Linus