'X is "better", based on "science"'
Which colour scheme is better?
21–30 of 81 posts
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#22I use only dark schemes for programming and is way more relaxing for my eyes.
One of the reasons is that the minimum brightness of my screens are just too bright compared to ambient light at night, and I love my ambient light at night, that is quite bright but illuminates all the room, so I can work on the room, and use things like blackboards or notepads, not just the computer screen.
It hurts my eyes to have white rectangles at the middle of the night so higher than the environment.
Those screens are supposedly high quality and they can be way too bright in order to compete with the sun, but not dim enough for low light places.
Dark themes let you have letters with higher visual contrast as all colors contrast with dark way more than against white.
It is a complex issue with multiple variables, not just one.
BTW I don't see science anywhere in the article. Science needs you testing your hypothesis with actual experiments and collecting data.
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#23> Using a dark colour scheme to write code requires more eye processing power than using a light colour scheme. Sure the difference seems negligible, it's only a few milliseconds. Actually, it's a few milliseconds every time you "rescan" your screen; that's between 10 or 50 times a second, depending on what research you want to believe. Why is it assumed that this delay is a bad thing or necessarily increases cogniti…
It's a pretty tenuous idea that seems to be based on the assumption that the brain is like a single core CPU, and wasting a few ms extra on visual decoding will leave less processing power available to reason about code. Also seems to assume that every time you "scan" a scene that your brain has to start from a blank slate, whereas my own (probably stupid and not based in any presentable scientific fact) assumption would be that it's more of a delta process.
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#24My 2 cents: I used to use dark themes for a couple of years only to realize that I had to increase the font in my IDE to almost twice as big as I have it now, after I switched back to light theme. Reading dark text on light background is so much easier to me. However, I also adjust white balance of my display to very warm end of spectrum using “night shift” on Mac even during the day.
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#25"By only covering one eye with sunglasses, you add a few milliseconds of delay to that one." A few milliseconds? What are you talking about?
15ms if this is correct : https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/407580/Pulfrich_effect
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#26Why do people feel they have to shove their opinions down peoples throats like this?
Is the fact that some people like dark colour schemes really that threatening?
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#27Why do people feel they have to shove their opinions down peoples throats like this? Is the fact that some people like dark colour schemes really that threatening?
Are they correct?
Computer science is not a field in which learners can reason about best practises for themselves. There is so much to learn that most of the habits we adopt are just articles of faith.
For example, it took me 15 years to ask myself if I was really happy using camelCase. When I thought about the issue for myself, it was glaringly clear that snake_case is easier to read and reason about.
If light color schemes are truly easier to read, it benefits the industry to have people advocating for it.
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#28I think the point that's missing is reflective vs. transmitive surfaces -- that brain is used to processing not the latter, but the former -- where reflected light is related to, and less than, ambient light. If we were using hi-res color e-ink displays, I think he'd be right about eye-strain. However, using a light scheme with mostly text, you have a huge rectangle of LED (most of the time) white light blaring at yo…
> However, using a light scheme with mostly text, you have a huge rectangle of LED (most of the time) white light blaring at you, which itself causes eyestrain. I'll basically repeat my comment from below, but ergonomically set up displays meet ambient brightness, but don't exceed it (much). If you're sitting in front of a display set to 80 % brightness (~300+ cd/m²) in the evening, you're simply holding it wrong and…
Over-bright displays relative to the ambient light are definitely an issue. I've found myself feeling much less strongly about light vs dark since I installed some LED strips on the back of my monitors as bias lighting. (I didn't want to dim my monitors much more because you do lose contrast when the backlight is low)
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#29Why do people feel they have to shove their opinions down peoples throats like this? Is the fact that some people like dark colour schemes really that threatening?
Are they correct? Computer science is not a field in which learners can reason about best practises for themselves. There is so much to learn that most of the habits we adopt are just articles of faith. For example, it took me 15 years to ask myself if I was really happy using camelCase. When I thought about the issue for myself , it was glaringly clear that snake_case is easier to read and reason about. If light col…
One important difference is that your choice of colour scheme usually only affects you, while your code will more likely be read by others.
Re: Which colour scheme is better?
#30So, I have used both routinely, and don't really care too much one way or the other. I use dark more often, but if for whatever reason I'm in an editor that is light-themed (which happens not uncommonly), it's not worth any of my time to switch. So I don't have strong emotions on this. However, I do notice that "because science says so" is becoming a more and more common "you are not allowed to argue with my conclusi…
It's so weird. Why isn't it enough to just say "I've tried both, and light backgrounds are easier on my eyes." Pulling out weak science just makes it seem like they're insecure in their opinion (if you can even call it an opinion when talking about which option is causing an individual discomfort)