It reduces productivity and adds headache.
Code is not a textbook. A good programmer has to always look at different pieces of code and would lose himself in the mess of symbols if there is no indents and block highlights..
Syntax Off (2012)
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#12Here is another popular article about not using syntax highlighting. http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ I still think it is nutty.
I don't think it's that nutty.
I use syntax highlighting, but I use very mellow colors that do not distract. The example given out in Akesson's article is a complete eyesore, however many text editors are like that and it's not that simple to change the color scheme in all of them.
I believe syntax highlighting can also spoil you if that's all you're used to. It is a good exercise to write and maintain some code in raw format, occasionally.
Personally I think it's enough just to highlight the reserved keywords and comments.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#13This reminds me of something I've heard Douglas Crockford propose in the past: syntax highlighting would be more useful [in some languages] if it was used to color different scopes.
To that end, rainbow-delimiters for emacs is somewhat useful.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#14Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#15This reminds me of something I've heard Douglas Crockford propose in the past: syntax highlighting would be more useful [in some languages] if it was used to color different scopes.
I already do this in Sublime Text, it's very useful when you may have PHP and HTML in the same file. It's also useful with the much less common HTML with CSS or JS.
I fear you're about to get a lot of comments about mixing PHP and HTML in the same file. And I don't think the OP was talking about that kind of 'scope'.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#16"The best way I can describe it is to compare it to reading a book. When I read a book, I don't want parts of speech highlighted in different colours. What I want to do is to read the book, to take in the information." I found this interesting, as my reaction has been almost the complete opposite. I've never felt that syntax highlighting played a part in understanding code at a high level. Syntax highlighting is ther…
I think this analogy is just terrible. A book != code. Well, certainly a novel, in which you're not re-reading the same sentence several times over, flipping 100 pages forward, then 90 pages back, etc. I can actually think of certain ways in which a non-fiction book could be usefully 'syntax highlighted'.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#17I actually sometimes associate words with sound and color - it makes me wonder why we are still limiting ourselves only visual feedback.
I vaguely remember somebody posting a lisp-y emacs-y setup of a synth coding environment of sorts that looked like heaven to me. (You'd quickly iterate on code with transforms that would shift the sound playing at all times and the colors would POP at you) It also makes me wonder how blind coders handle things. Does a pleasant yet distinct background noise when hovering over say, curly braces or parens, does that make sense to anybody else? I'm developing an itch here but I don't want to go it alone as it were.
Edit: also come to think of it, why isn't this stuff empirically tested? The right font faces and sizes for optimal readability, tabs vs spaces, camelCase vs snake_case, colors and which ones, all the classics. Where is the science?
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#18Here is another popular article about not using syntax highlighting. http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ I still think it is nutty.
My synthesis of the acme/plan9 folks and the mainstream is that color can be useful in an environment, but the way it's currently used is not. Like this guy points out, there's no point highlighting language keywords; we're just doing it because it's easy to do so. Rather conserve the color and our attention for when it's truly needed.
But the need for color seems too strong to fight with pure rationality. Perhaps it's enough that adding a little color to an environment we spend a significant amount of our lives in makes us happy. Since I have no taste, garishness doesn't bother me :)
Here's an example of color being used in a relatively staid place -- and paying for itself: https://plus.google.com/110440139189906861022/posts/UqyUZdqP...
Hopefully these considerations will be subsumed by new research by Bret Victor or Rune Madsen (http://vimeo.com/61113159).
For now, here's my preferred syntax highlighting, with just a dash of color in most usual places, but two colors for comments: http://i.imgur.com/H1h7M.png. (Why 2 comment colors? http://akkartik.name/post/2012-11-24-18-10-36-soc has the scoop.) Notice how the left pane is C++ and the right pane is my toy lisp, and the syntax kinda harmonizes.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#19Here is another popular article about not using syntax highlighting. http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ I still think it is nutty.
I don't think it's that nutty. I use syntax highlighting, but I use very mellow colors that do not distract. The example given out in Akesson's article is a complete eyesore, however many text editors are like that and it's not that simple to change the color scheme in all of them. I believe syntax highlighting can also spoil you if that's all you're used to. It is a good exercise to write and maintain some code in r…
Most of why I think it is nutty is because most of the reasons given to support disabling highlighting boil down to "I don't like this particular colorscheme". Which editors make it difficult to customize your colorscheme? All of the popular ones that I know of make it simple. Even nano makes it simple.
Re: Syntax Off (2012)
#20Here is another popular article about not using syntax highlighting. http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ I still think it is nutty.
My synthesis of the acme/plan9 folks and the mainstream is that color can be useful in an environment, but the way it's currently used is not. Like this guy points out, there's no point highlighting language keywords; we're just doing it because it's easy to do so. Rather conserve the color and our attention for when it's truly needed. But the need for color seems too strong to fight with pure rationality. Perhaps it…
I have little objection to some people preferring fewer colors or having fewer things called out for coloring. What I don't understand is the leap from "This particular scheme is totally overdoing it" to "Let's discard the notion entirely" Merely adjusting the colors that you use and the things that you highlight seems like a clear winning solution.