I make use of diff in my day job: I frequently need to compare a ‘stock’ version of some configuration code to a modified version running at a client site. I do this often, but I realize that most of my colleagues don’t even know diff exists. If they did, they’d be baffled by the command line options. Most of them have spent their careers swaddled in GUI interfaces.

Since I like diff, use it a lot, and think it would benefit GUI users to have access to it, I’d like to write a wrapper for GNU diff that would place the many command line switchs into nice logical menus, handle file selection via typical dialog boxes, and drop stdout into a text window from which the user can read or save the results.

It’s also a good excuse for me to learn some more Python, and to work with wxPython for the first time.

It’s a learning exercise, basically, that may yield something of use. I confess to be inspired (but not nearly as ambitious as) the work done on Sprog which bills itself as “scripting for the GUI guys”, though I vaguely remember them using the more-accurate “data munging for the GUI guys” a while back. I’m doing a wrapper for “diff for the GUI guys”.

My hope is that a) I’ll learn something useful and b) I’ll produce something useful.

And have some fun doing it.