Polylogarithmic Approximation for Edit Distance and the Asymmetric Query Complexity · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1005.4033/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTPolylogarithmic Approximation for Edit Distance and the Asymmetric Query Complexity — mentioned by grantwuhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23061519urn:hackerpapers:mention:1005.4033:23061519Sun, 03 May 2020 20:13:59 GMT<p>Can you point to a source that defines Levenstein distance as only referring to bitstreams? A translation of the original article [1] that introduced the concept notes in a footnote that &quot;the definitions given below are also meaningful if the code is taken to mean an arbitrary set of words (possibly of different lengths) in some alphabet containing r letters (r &gt;= 2)&quot;. And if you wish to strictly stick to how it was originally defined, you&#x27;d need to only use strings of the same length. More recent sources [2] say instead &quot;over some alphabet&quot;, and even in the first footnote, describe results…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1005.4033/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>cs.DS