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Diffs vs. Whole Files: How Should an LLM Edit Code?
New paper comparing two ways to train a code model to edit files: rewrite the whole file in one shot, or emit a sequence of small diffs, like a human dev would.
I invite you to try it live: 🤗 bbidpa/diffs-vs-whole-files-demo - throw in your own snippet and watch all four models race.
Trained two architectures (a from-scratch 100M model and a fine-tuned Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B) both ways, on ~1,790 Flutter/Dart tasks.
Result: direct generation wins overall - but diffs hold their own on short, localized edits like refactors and bug fixes.
Diffs vs. Whole Files: An Empirical Comparison of Iterative Edit-Based and Direct Generation for Flutter/Dart Code Models (2609.05779)
bbidpa/Rainbow-Pony-100m-Flutter-steps
bbidpa/Rainbow-Pony-100m-Flutter-direct
bbidpa/Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B-Flutter-steps
bbidpa/Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B-Flutter-direct
New paper comparing two ways to train a code model to edit files: rewrite the whole file in one shot, or emit a sequence of small diffs, like a human dev would.
I invite you to try it live: 🤗 bbidpa/diffs-vs-whole-files-demo - throw in your own snippet and watch all four models race.
Trained two architectures (a from-scratch 100M model and a fine-tuned Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B) both ways, on ~1,790 Flutter/Dart tasks.
Result: direct generation wins overall - but diffs hold their own on short, localized edits like refactors and bug fixes.
Diffs vs. Whole Files: An Empirical Comparison of Iterative Edit-Based and Direct Generation for Flutter/Dart Code Models (2609.05779)
bbidpa/Rainbow-Pony-100m-Flutter-steps
bbidpa/Rainbow-Pony-100m-Flutter-direct
bbidpa/Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B-Flutter-steps
bbidpa/Qwen2.5-Coder-0.5B-Flutter-direct