Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I program without syntax highlighting

hakon.gylterud.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#41

Post by chaps »

monokai_nl wrote: post #21

I program with syntax highlighting. I'm not convinced by the arguments of the article: - actively clicking on matching parentheses has the benefit of selecting that part - being more sensitive to the "beauty" of the code I think syntax highlighting doesn't get in the way of these two points. The only valid point: - No syntax highlighting automatically supports all languages True I guess. In the sense that no shoes su…

"The only valid point:"

This is a post about preferences. Why do you think your preferences are "more valid" than theirs?

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#42

Post by adornKey »

LatencyKills wrote: post #19
cogman10 wrote: post #14

I think language matters quite a bit when it comes to how useful this is. For simpler syntaxes like C or Java, I think the highlighting adds little. But as a language allows for more complex things like monkey patching or helper methods and the like, a little bit of color is really helpful. Knowing immediately that a method is built into the SDK or that it's some monkey patch that's been added gives me better underst…

I was an engineer on the Visual Studio team when we first introduced syntax highlighting and code completion. The rollout triggered quite a bit of internal controversy. A sizable group of developers strongly opposed these features—syntax coloring, parameter completion, signature validation—arguing that “real programmers write their code unaided.” I can’t help but wonder how those same engineers are adapting to the cu…

When making a typo one guy I knew deleted the whole word with backspace and typed it new from the beginning. Anything else to correct the error he called cheating.

That was a long time ago - and he was still young. But not so long ago I asked some keyboard manufacturer (Ducky?!) to add more macro features for productivity - and I got the answer that it would be cheating to play back macros faster than normal writing speed - Recording macros on a keyboard and playing it back faster than recorded was impossible by design because they don't want to support cheaters.

Oh those coders... I wonder how much code on Github is invalid because of cheating...

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#47

Post by reactordev »

monokai_nl wrote: post #21

I program with syntax highlighting. I'm not convinced by the arguments of the article: - actively clicking on matching parentheses has the benefit of selecting that part - being more sensitive to the "beauty" of the code I think syntax highlighting doesn't get in the way of these two points. The only valid point: - No syntax highlighting automatically supports all languages True I guess. In the sense that no shoes su…

"acively clicking" this is where it fails for me. In vim, there is no mouse, there is only zuul.

I get that he sees words and numbers colored but the rest of us like the quick visual context it gives when trying to quickly find things in large files. So I'm with you, :syntax on

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#48

Post by alfiedotwtf »

I’m right in the middle of creating my own theme… my motivation is “colour is signal” and so it has the aim of having important things grab your attention vs boring things you’re safe to ignore.

… coding without syntax highlighting deprives you of signal!

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#49

Post by Miraltar »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #40
monokai_nl wrote: post #21

I program with syntax highlighting. I'm not convinced by the arguments of the article: - actively clicking on matching parentheses has the benefit of selecting that part - being more sensitive to the "beauty" of the code I think syntax highlighting doesn't get in the way of these two points. The only valid point: - No syntax highlighting automatically supports all languages True I guess. In the sense that no shoes su…

“no syntax highlighting supports all languages, therefore I don’t use any syntax highlighting” is not even a logical argument.

That's not really what's said. If you regularly change languages and some are supported and some are not, switching to unsupported languages will be very unpleasant. Having to switch editor/install plugins/customize can be tedious.

Re: I program without syntax highlighting

#50

Post by reactordev »

quadrium wrote: post #5

Most syntax highlighting adds too many color variations. In light modes, I find that variations gray and bolding certain symbols, variable names, function names in definitions and method calls to be enough. Just enough hint so the brain can skim for the matching information. My editor highlights the opening and closing brackets of my current block,but indent level indicators are usually enough for me to visually vali…

And then there's Rainbow Brackets...
Post reply on HN