Do you use syntax highlighting? Does using it make you worse at programming? Should I disable it in my editor?Rob Pike famously said "Syntax highlighting is juvenile". Was he right?I think it's useful to detect unclosed strings or unclosed comments or stuff like that, but in general I'm not sure if it's making me just dumber.What do you think? Discuss
It helps prevent the text from blurring together.
>>109949875There's no reason not to use it, especially since it helps you filter out stuff
>>109949875I tell a robot to write 90% of my code and you're wondering if it's "juvenile" to colour my code? C S Lewis once remarked "When I became a man, I set aside childish things, including the desire not to be seen as a child"
>>109949875Syntax highlighting can help with learning to read code, but you still have to learn to read code.
its just another tool. does it make you more productive? is it easier to use ? no one cares if you struggled to do the same thing someone else did easily. results is all that matters.
>>109949940>Worrying about being able to think is so childish broooo
>>109949977thinking colours will ruin your ability to think is pretty childish, sure. more pertinently it's just stupid.
>>109949875>OP's pic.pngInteresting visual argument, but there's a difference: natural language is so flexible that the coloring is unpredictable, so it draws your attention to individual words and interferes with chunking. In a programming language, the colors appear in predictable places that complement the code structure, which actually helps the programmer's equivalent of chunking.
>>109949940Funnily enough, rob pike used that exact quote while arguing that syntax coloring is juvenile.
>>109950067You presumably mean he referenced the same passage from the bible that lewis is referencing.
>>109949875Only if tasteful and sparing. If everything is highlighted then nothing is highlighted.
>>109950078Yes indeed, he was quoting the Bible, not Lewis.>>109950048I don't know, there are people on the internet arguing that disabling syntax highlighting made them write clearer code that was easier to read even without syntax coloring. Saying it ruins thinking maybe is taking it too far, but maybe there's something to it regarding coding ability. Idk does anyone have experience with this?
>>109949875I have color vision. Why wouldn't I use color to help me visually parse code's structure and patterns?
>If you use syntax highlighting, you're not a real man!
>>109950048>Smartest vibeslopper
>>109949875*ahem*Color Forththank you
>>109949875That pic is a bit messy. For me it would be more useful to just highlight when a new sentence starts, kind of like how old medieval rubricated manuscripts did. Maybe punctuation in general too to break up the parts of a sentence.
>>109949875I don't think syntax highlighting is inherently bad, but I don't like having too much of it. I like having comments that are visually distinct from the rest of the code, and that's about all I need it for.
>>109950870That looks pretty good, actually.
>>109949875rob pike can code all he wants in vi
>>109950870I would read ebooks if they were like that. usually my eyes have issues with skipping lines
