Excellent points. What I would add is that he talks about finite cognitive energy, but nowhere in the article mentions how highlighting helps to save the very s

Excellent points. What I would add is that he talks about finite cognitive energy, but nowhere in the article mentions how highlighting helps to save the very same cognitive energy. For example, if there's a comment in the code, without highlight you would need to follow the comment and look for closing quotes. If the comment contains escaped quotes it becomes even more difficult. With highlight you immediately see where it ends. Another example are keywords - when they are highlighted, you don't even need to read it. You glance at them and know the meaning by their shape. While without highlighting you would have to read every single one of them to understand that they are in fact keywords and not something else.