Introduction Support Hardware Software Good Stuff Websites XEDIT COGO Windows Linux

TerraGraphics Good Stuff - Beyond Compare

Beyond Compare

In the 1970's my friend, Jim Connell, wrote a program to compare two text files. It turned out so valuable we couldn't imagine how other programmers lived without it. After some time I wrote a program to compare two directory trees. This was before the days of DOS. These were command line utilities that we kept converting as we moved to new systems.

A few years ago Jim discovered Beyond Compare and kept after me until I finally tried it. It was the same order of improvement all over again. I haven't used our old programs since.

It compares directory trees, files, file lines. That's the compare part. The beyond part? - well, I guess that would be how it lets you help it display the compare the way you want it interpreted and then lets you change the things you are comparing by moving parts of them from one to the other and even editing them directly.

When the upgrade from version 2 to 3 became available, I was sure it was so good that it could only get worse as many good programs do. Surprise! It got much better.

I had planned to put a list of things the program is good for here but it would sound silly. Just remember this the next time you wonder what changed or why two things don't match. Download it and try it.