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A comment on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes? by nuky on Wednesday January 14, 2026 @04:59PM (#46624279)
Yeah difftastic and similar tools help a lot with formatting noise really.

My question is slightly orthogonal though: even with a cleaner diff, I still find it hard to quickly tell whether public API or behavior changed, or whether logic just moved around.

Not really about LLMs as reviewers — more about whether there are useful deterministic signals above line-level diff.

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Re:Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes? by veunes on Thursday January 15, 2026 @05:18AM (#46630546)
The tools exist, they're just rarely used in web dev. Look into ApiDiff or tools using Tree-sitter to compare function signatures. In the Rust/Go ecosystem, there are tools that scream in CI if the public contract changes. We need to bring that rigor into everyday AI-assisted dev. A diff should say "Function X now accepts null", not "line 42 changed"
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