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Some "smart" AI trying to guess my intentions and reason about the code is the last thing I want. This will inevitably go wrong, and I will be left with a nonse

Some "smart" AI trying to guess my intentions and reason about the code is the last thing I want. This will inevitably go wrong, and I will be left with a nonsensical patch, which may not be immediately obvious, because the AI though that it figured out what I wanted. I‘d much rather encounter an error and solve it myself. Linus got it right: Keep the diffing very simple and obvious, then refer to a human if there is ambiguity.

modeless 7y ago
> I will be left with a nonsensical patch This is the current state of things, though. Heuristic diff algorithms generate nonsensical patches all the time. They may be technically correct but completely obscure the meaning of the diff. The simplicity of the diff algorithm does not help me understand a bad diff. And these diff algorithms are already not that simple. A machine learning approach could still guarantee technical correctness of the diff, but give patches that make sense more often.