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

Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

kevq.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 552 posts

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#491

Post by acrefoot »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #475
dekhn wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did. Not impressed.

If 60% people perform better with light theme and 40% dark theme, average is going to be that light theme is superior. This doesn't make dark mode a bad idea.

This is going to appear nitpicky, but the average preference is some average gray, neither dark nor light. The mode is light. That relates back to the fighter jet thing: if you’re going to build a non-adjustable cockpit, build one that fits (within some tolerance) the most number of pilots, not the average on every dimension.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#492

Post by nrclark »

dsego wrote: post #283
roelschroeven wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seriously, who uses F-keys? It's wasted real estate I'm sorry, what? I use them all the time. F5 for refreshing all kinds of stuff, or for setting breakpoints in my IDE. F7, F8, F9 for controlling the debugger, other combinations for building/running. F12 for opening developer tools in the browser. Some programs still use F1 for help. F2 in Windows explorer for renaming things. And so on and so forth. I can't stand…

That's because you're used to them, that's fine. Many of those actions can be done via key combos or other keys (esp on a Mac), like C+R to refresh, C+Sh+I for browser console or Enter to rename a file. Function keys at this point are certainly old school and could even be considered an atavism, like the Print Screen button or the numeric keypad.

Tons of software uses the function keys, especially Windows/cross-platform software. Lots of engineering tools, editing tools, content authoring, programming, etc.

Removing them would break compatibility with an awful lot of things, including Windows itself (which lots of people run using Bootcamp or Parallels). Maybe they're weird, I don't know. Momentum is a powerful force, especially when it comes to software design.

Also for the record, Print Screen takes a screenshot on Windows (and on a lot of Linux systems), which is intuitive and simple. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's an abandoned key.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#493

Post by dekhn »

acrefoot wrote: post #491
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 60% people perform better with light theme and 40% dark theme, average is going to be that light theme is superior. This doesn't make dark mode a bad idea.

This is going to appear nitpicky, but the average preference is some average gray, neither dark nor light. The mode is light. That relates back to the fighter jet thing: if you’re going to build a non-adjustable cockpit, build one that fits (within some tolerance) the most number of pilots, not the average on every dimension.

IE, argmax, not mean

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#494

Post by xtracto »

m12k wrote: post #262
yiyus wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is not a faith based system. If you doubt about the rigor of some study, by all means point the errors you find. In the meantime, I will trust those scientific studies more than subjective opinions in hackernews comments.

Well, arguably science is just the superior faith-based system. Nothing is ever proven, but it contains a method to constantly find the theory most likely to deserve your faith.

That's my problem with science (and I am an atheist who is 100% for the scientific method and even have a PhD):

The "real" science has no absolutes. But the problem is that it is very difficult for humans to operationalize it that way. Take for example eggs and cholesterol. I remember in the late 80s, my father (also a scientist/biologist) stopped eating eggs because apparently Science said eggs are bad for you (due to some papers)... later in the mid/late 90s Science said that eggs are actually not bad, but good for you (because, even if they where high on cholesterol, it was the good cholesterol).

So, for people (even other scientists!) that are not experts in the subject, it becomes a matter of belief... believe in the papers some random team published, because it was published in Nature.

> Nothing is ever proven, but it contains a method to constantly find the theory most likely to deserve your faith.

I love this quote!

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#496

Post by bradstewart »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #361
athenot wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark mode has 2 main advantages: - Better rendering of hues. This comes in nice for things like syntax coloring, or photo editing. The eye is evaluating a color next to the absence of light, instead of next to washed out light. - Less eye strain when ambient light is insufficient. Ideally the brightness of the screen should be within the same range of brighness as the surroundings. In my home office, I have about 20,…

Any comments on optimal lighting for a home office? Or, as your setup is? A nice bright working area sounds nice. Bonus if it's good light, and not something that will feel unnatural. Sidenote: I've got a nice big window that I face, and I often want it open, but my room is so dark I have to keep it mostly closed as it overpowers my monitor, eyes, etc.

My home office is the only place I really feel the benefit of Philips Hue bulbs. Being able to fine-tune and change the white color temperature throughout the day (and night) is fantastic.

Personally, I prefer indirect light. So I have light strips which illuminate the wall behind my monitor , and a few other bulbs directed at the ceiling which reflect light back down.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#497

Post by philipov »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #467
dekhn wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have multiple misunderstandings about how science provides valuable results. The first thing I want to say is that I don't devalue your personal experience. I am unaware of any fighter jet seat problem. If you use the average, you're actually pretty likely (depending on the shape of the distribution, which in the case of phenotypes like body size, are normally distributed when broken down by gender) to fi…

I don't think he is misunderstanding anything. Using the average sometimes works, some times doesn't. Number of arms an average person has is less than 2. Definitely check out the fighter jet seat problem.

Mean is not a robust statistic, so that's why it's often better to use Median instead.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#498

Post by originalbryan2 »

programbreeding wrote: post #311
powersnail wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for me as well. I couldn't read the oven clock (blue on black) at just 10 feet away. Anything bright on a dark background is just a blurry radiation pattern. The reason dark-themed terminal and coding is fine, might be the monospace fonts. They are square-ish, so there is less need to find the edges accurately. They are also eligible on very cheap, trashy screens. As a side effect, code is readable in dar…

>I couldn't read the oven clock (blue on black) at just 10 feet away I have good vision: no known issues, regular eye checkups, etc. But I find it nearly impossible to read most displays that use blue LEDs. If the background is blue (eg: timex indiglo watch) then it's fine. But blue leds on some of my home theater equipment drive me insane. Even if it isn't the letters/numbers themselves and it's just a regular circu…

I first noticed the blue light issue when xmas led lights were put on trees around the holidays. Blue blurry things. Now my credit union has their sign in blue and I can’t read it.

10 years later I developed astigmatism in both eyes. Dark mode is really blurry in some settings.

The blue light thing, as I understand it, is where you first begin to notice astigmatism. The wavelength is shorter and a very slight astigmatism becomes more apparent.

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#499

Post by ironmagma »

sgift wrote: post #332
etage3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is faith based for the non-scientific. As you put it yourself, it is about trusting studies and the institutions that produced it (including whatever in them creates the incentives for p-hacking).

No scientist expects anyone to trust studies or the institutions producing them. So, that's wrong from the beginning. The expectation of refuting something is just a bit higher than "I don't believe it!", e.g. read the study and show flaws in it - or make a counter study which shows different results. Maybe combine both. Comparing this to faith where from the start you cannot check anything doesn't make any sense (if…

That's not really true. Scientists do (and expect others to) respect "established" and "trusted" journals that group studies together in some kind of authentication process. Even open journals like Sci-Hub are like this.

Otherwise, you could believe any PDF you can find on Google and know it to be true and representative. What if someone wrote a net to generate 10,000,000 studies on the same set of topics and scattered them throughout the Internet? Given a random study, you wouldn't know whether it's real or generated, without the "authority" aspect of a journal.

Now, whether or not the journals actually do a good job at authenticating the studies is another question. But, the principle stands that they are what we trust as consumers of science (a role which scientific researchers themselves play as well).

Re: Is Dark Mode Such a Good Idea?

#500

Post by mistersys »

I'd be more interested in a study specifically around coding, as coding in dark mode is even more popular then general dark mode.

Perhaps it's just the historical nature of coding on older displays that couldn't render white on black well, however I suspect that has more to do with syntax highlighting.

Colors show up much better against a black background, which probably helps in visually recognizing syntax forms via clearer colors. The only time I've used light mode while coding is when coding outdoors, where dark mode is simply too dark for the ambient environment.

Post reply on HN