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by bliker 4743 days ago
I was working similar idea, but for laws. They also change quite a lot and not very well presented online.

I halted the development after I realized how complicated can word diffs get. I would be interested about techniques that you used. I it is quite good as it is, but I noticed some common problems, such as:

1. Reusing letters from words that have nothing in common:

> fury over a [-hik-]{+n increas+}e in bus fares [1]

2. Inserting few paragraphs into one word (first paragraph) [2]

3. Loads of minor changes, also more of 1. [3]

[1] http://newsdiffs.org/diff/263401/263432/www.nytimes.com/2013...

[2] http://newsdiffs.org/diff/265812/265841/www.washingtonpost.c...

[3] http://newsdiffs.org/diff/265776/265810/www.nytimes.com/2013...

1 comments

That's ok. There's enough value in elevating the awareness that these things change frequently and providing a change record for those interested in a specific article, that providing a neater/cleaner way of conveying the changes is forgiven. Anyone can figure out how to read the diffs once they sit down to do it, and it still requires a human to interpret the value of changes. A single word can simply be a correction or it can be a complete reversal.

If a better UI is developed later on, it can be retrofitted.

I agree, in this case MVP is very good strategy. But I was more interested in technical side. Making it more readable is always a good target to have.