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nuky

4 karma · joined January 9, 2026

geek
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nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
Oh yeah tree-sitter it's a great foundation for semantic structure.

What I'm exploring is more about what we do with that structure once someone/smth starts generating thousands of changed lines: how to compress change into signals we can actually reason about.

Thank you for sharing. I'm actually trying your tool right now - it looks really interesting. Happy to exchange thoughts.

nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
Agreed - that trap is very real. The open question for me is what we do when atomic, 5min readable diffs are the right goal but not realistically achievable always. My gut says we need better deterministic signals to reduce noise before human review. Not to replace it.
nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
This is exactly the gap I'm worried about. human review still matters, but linear reading breaks down once the diff is mostly machine-generated noise. Summarizing what actually changed before reading feels like the only way to keep reviews sustainable.
nuky··on A tool to see what changed in your code (beyond the diff)
This came out of reviewing a lot of large refactors and AI-assisted changes.

The goal isn't to replace code review (ofc) or relax standards, but to make the consequences of changes visible early — so reviewers can decide where to focus or when to push back.

nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
It was precisely because this was going too far that I thought the consequences of the active adoption of LLM tools could be made visible. I'm not saying LLM is completely bad—after all, and not all tools, even non-LLM ones, are 100% deterministic. At the same time, reckless and uncontrolled use of LLM is increasingly gaining ground not only in coding but even in code analyze/review.
nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
fair — that’s what I do as well)
nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
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.

nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
That matches my experience too - tests and plans are still the backbone.

What I keep running into is the step before reading tests or code: when a change is large or mechanical, I’m mostly trying to answer "did behavior or API actually change, or is this mostly reshaping?" so I know how deep to go etc.

Agree we’re all still experimenting here.

nuky··on I built a geocoder for AI agents because I couldn't afford Google Maps
Makes sense. What about latency? for typical and hard queries
nuky··on I built a geocoder for AI agents because I couldn't afford Google Maps
Nice. And how do you handle candidates near H3 boundaries?
nuky··on I built a geocoder for AI agents because I couldn't afford Google Maps
Sounds interesting. What's the stack under the hood?
nuky··on Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
Just to clarify - this isn’t about replacing diffs or selling a tool

I ran into this problem while reviewing AI-gen refactors and started thinking about whether we’re still reviewing the right things. Mostly curious how others approach this.