Hello all,

I screwed up yesterday and widened the rift in our community. To me this means that I've volunteered to close the rift. Oops. *That's* not going to be trivial. 

I need a way to diff two images. I need to be able to roll some metrics around "how different are these two images."

By "mutually missing," I mean specifically any case were one image needs a selector the other hasn't got. This merged list is what I mean by "mutually missing."

For a first stab, I will be glad to ignore mutable state in the images and focus entirely on source code. I'd like to simply know:

1) how many selectors are mutually missing

2) how many methods are different (it might make sense to compare compiled methods, rather than source methods in this particular case if it will ignore stylistic differences to any extent)

3) How many classes are mutually missing 

...and certainly many, many other things I'll learn that I need later. My plan is to just iterate over and enumerate these objects. It will probably take some time to do, no doubt. 

Could be a fool's errand, but at least from a technical perspective, I want to understand our differences better than I do now, and this is the best way that I know how. 

The real problem, the cultural divide, cannot be approached without full comprehension of the differences between our respective goal-sets. With my Software Anthropology hat on, the only way I know how to study these dynamics is to examine the artifacts left behind by the two groups after the split. 

In my heart I believe that we will some day arrive upon a base system which will be well suited to addressing all of our multifaceted concerns. Until that happens, though, the best thing I can do is try to read the diff. 

This is my penance. 

I'm writing to ask for advice. Does the approach I've outlined make sense to you? Is there a better way that you know of to diff the code contents of two images? If so, I want to know about your ideas on the matter. You may have pieces of the puzzle that I don't have. 

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom. 

Until all are one. 

C