4 ms·
From figure 4 we can draw the conclusion that the most experienced programmers shouldn't use syntax highlighting?
by mkj 11y ago
From figure 4 we can draw the conclusion that the most experienced programmers shouldn't use syntax highlighting?
- krisdol 11y agoThe fault lies in the simplicity of the test. Experienced programmers will not be slowed by lack of syntax coloring when parsing a simple example, but it is reasonable to think that they still benefit from it in larger, more complex codebases -- that was not studied here.
- saurik 11y agoNote that that is a negative log, and so isn't saying the person was slowed down (which you may or may not have thought, but just verifying). https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-nuts/hJHCAaiL0so/kG3BHV6QFfIJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-nuts/hJHCAaiL0so/kG3B...
- userbinator 11y agoActually they were slowed down: "Thus, if a participant completed the plain version of a task in 60s, and the highlighted counterpart in 30s, the time advantage for that task is 60s/30s = 2" The part of the range below 0 corresponds to time advantages < 1, i.e. it took longer for the highlighted part than the plain one. Several times longer, if the results are to be believed (there's one around -0.7 and three at -0.5; that's a "time advantage" of approximately 0.2 and 0.3, or 5x to 3x slower.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- saurik 11y agoHuh. You win this round. FWIW, I actually get pretty seriously tripped up for a moment when I am staring at syntax highlighting that is unlike the syntax highlighting I have become overly used to...
- Animats 11y agoFor 9 of the 30 examples, syntax coloring resulted in poorer performance. In about 5 examples, much poorer performance. The experimenters showed no interest in finding out why. Yet they had eye-tracking data. Did syntax coloring attract attention to the wrong text for some problems? Which ones?
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y agoI think the only sensible conclusion we should draw is to find what works best for you and stick with it. :)