https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/0807.4368/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMThttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9703701urn:hackerpapers:mention:0807.4368:9703701Fri, 12 Jun 2015 02:34:33 GMT<p>&gt; two almost-equal files. In that case the average running time should be way lower, no? Yes, indeed! What you&#x27;re thinking of is &quot;output-sensitive&quot; algorithms. There are some output-sensitive algorithms for edit distance. The fastest one I found is in &quot;Improved Algorithms for Approximate String Matching&quot; by Dimitris and Georgios Papamichail. They note: &quot;We designed an output sensitive algorithm solving the edit distance problem between two strings of lengths n and m respectively in time O((s-|n-m|)min(m,n,s)+m+n) and linear space, where s is the edit distance between the two strings.&quot;…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/0807.4368/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.DS