>... there's a huge amount we could be doing with ASTs, where right now we're mostly kludging along with line-based tools. Merging/diffing is one example. ...

>... there's a huge amount we could be doing with ASTs, where right now we're mostly kludging along with line-based tools. Merging/diffing is one example. ... Strongly agree - seems a strange situation to me. The line-based thinking that still dominates the majority *nix has some advantages but also does seem to impede progress. It reminds me that I meant to read Rob Pikes "Structural Regular Expressions" [0]. (ht #pmoriarty - from HN mid-November [1]) Furthermore, even if there is well-defined AST available, it doesn't mean it will be used. XML based formats for example - e.g. see here: [2] If we could even semi-automatically merge Microsoft's Office Open XML formats [3] anywhere using the associated AST that would surely create huge value for lots of businesses. [0] http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/structural_regexps/se.pdf http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/structural_regexps/se.pdf [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15714169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15714169 [2] https://joepairman.com/posts/xml-in-git-mercurial-watch-out-for-merges https://joepairman.com/posts/xml-in-git-mercurial-watch-out-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML