[ JDiff-devel ] Re: JDiff (fwd)

[mike d. <md...@st...>]

ditto.

-md

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:56:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: mike dillon <md...@gj...>
To: Victor Volle <v....@co...>
Subject: Re: JDiff

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, Victor Volle wrote:
> Hi!

hi! indeed!

> The only thing I miss from jEdit is a diff-mode/tool.  You have been
> developing JDiff, but AFAIK you have stopped any further development.

this is true. i have posted a number of messages to both the jDiff mailing
lists and to the jEdit mailing lists seeking advice as to how to proceed, but
no one has been more than passively interested. until now.

i believe the latest concensus was that jDiff as a separate application should
cease to exist and instead should continue on only as a jEdit plugin. for those
who would have liked to see jDiff move toward being more of a visual diff _and_
merge tool, this is not too satisfying. being that i am more than happy with
command line diff and patch, this didn't bother me personally, but i was kind
of saddened by the curtailing of potential usefulness.

> I am interested in stepping in if you don't mind, but need to further
> evaluate the code of jEdit, since I would like to use much of its codebase.
> Therefore I do not want to commit myself, yet. 

great! and it's fine that you aren't sure. take your time to make a proper
decision and don't get sucked in. the main reason why my motivation to work on
this project sputtered was that i have never really had any need for jDiff
myself. i haven't used WinDiff or anything like it in actual work.

using jEdit as a code base is a good idea, since it has a lot of solid code.
also, as it says in the jDiff CREDITS file, and in the derived sources
themselves, much of the jdiff.gui package is based on the excellent text area
Slava wrote for jEdit 2.0.

in addition to that, i myself am probably the second-most familiar with the
jEdit source of anyone in the world (except maybe Andre Kaplan), so i should be
able to provide you with worthwhile and insightful feedback to comparisons or
design issues that arise. (and, Slava is both on the jDiff project and on the
mailing lists, so he can discuss as well)

> But before I explore any further: Is anybody else doing something in this
> area? I am not "pressed" doing it myself. It is just a feature I really would
> like to see implemented.

Andre Kaplan took a rather early version of the jDiff code and turned it into a
usable jEdit plugin, which i is still available from his development page at
http://jedit.sourceforge.net/devel/people/akaplan/.

that plugin has not been updated in quite a while. i don't know whether it will
work with a current version of jEdit. it was never on Plugin Central.

Daniel Lemire recently committed some small changes to the jDiff code to allow
files to be chosen and compared from within jDiff, but i don't think he has any
interest in doing further development.

i'll close for now, but i urge you to at least join the jDiff-devel mailing
list so that we can discuss in public. i look forward from hearing back from
you.

-md

p.s. woo hoo!