Sir, Please Step Away from the ASR-33 (2010)

Post by walshemj » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

jedimind wrote: post #20

michaelmrose wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great example of how very smart capable people can express silly ideas wherein they justify personal preference with bad logic. https://ppig.org/papers/2015-ppig-26th-dimitri/ Code isn't arithmetic nor prose and the majority usage of highlighting is because people intuitively grasp that life is easier with highlighting. It is perfectly ok to have different preferences but one must be careful not to elevate a prefer…

I hypothesised that syntax highlighting just had to provide some tangible benefits just because of how it allows the brain to process lots of information with a quick glance. After having witnessed a few geniuses work and swear by no syntax highlighting, I started to doubt my thesis, so thank you for linking the paper. Maybe some people just perceive the syntax highlighting as cognitive overload although it's meant t…

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #189

eterevsky wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a degree in math and I disagree with this. ω_0 definitely looks better than omega_0, but it is much harder to enter unless you have a special keyboard setup. Suppose you write a function that uses a variable ω_0, and somebody else wants to change it. Unless they have the same keyboard setup as you, they will have to just copy-past it everywhere. And what if you have several variable with special names?

Okay, so we need better keyboards then. If a character is annoying to type, that is a keyboard problem, not a language or charset problem. So let's improve the keyboard. Currently we are stuck with the garbage qwerty keyboard (and various slightly better permutations of it) which doesn't even let you type all of ascii. Computers should just do what humans want. If you see a character, you should just be able to type…

Post by a1369209993 » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

Zababa wrote: post #139

> And need I remind anybody that you cannot buy a monochrome screen anymore? Syntax-coloring editors are the default. Why not make color part of the syntax? Why not tell the compiler about protected code regions by putting them on a framed light gray background? Or provide hints about likely and unlikely code paths with a green or red background tint? I'm colorblind, please never do that. Syntax highlighting is fine…

Post by rm445 » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

phkamp wrote: post #140

I wrote this, and I'm here if you have questions.

Post by a1369209993 » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

azalemeth wrote: post #192

IlliOnato wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes it easy to type, but does it make it easy to read/maintain? As they say, it's already way too easier to write code than to read it. A programmer should make every effort to make code more readable. An editor should make it relatively easy to enter special symbols (especially if you can specify a limited set); it is totally solvable problem. An editor can only help you so far with reading code...

For me, the biggest problem with the whole maths ---> code mapping is that of nested brackets. For a random quick example, I mean things like (a*(1+exp(1i*theta[0,:]))+foo(x))/((b-cosh(bar(x))+(b+sinh(y[:,-1])). The sort of thing where it just _looks_ far nicer on a page with like _real fractions_ -- where missing a bracket or changing the order of two brackets can _totally_ bugger you. Yes, changing the form of the…

  double cf = cos(phi),sf = sin(phi);
  double cp = cos(psi),sp = sin(psi);
  double ct = cos(theta),st = sin(theta);
  alpha = [ cp*cf-ct*sf*sp   cp*sf+ct*cf*sp   sp*st;
           -sp*cf-ct*sf*cp  -sp*sf+ct*cf*cp   cp*st;
            st*sf           -st*cf            ct];

  alpha = [ cψ*cϕ-cθ*sϕ*sψ   cψ*sϕ+cθ*cϕ*sψ   sψ*sθ;
           -sψ*cϕ-cθ*sϕ*cψ  -sψ*sϕ+cθ*cϕ*cψ   cψ*sθ;
            sθ*sϕ           -sθ*cϕ            cθ];