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I think that comparison between text and code is wrong! Totally! But maybe it depends how you experience code, it makes sense that it affects your preference to

I think that comparison between text and code is wrong! Totally! But maybe it depends how you experience code, it makes sense that it affects your preference to syntax highlighting. And I do not like how he took personal preference and tried to generalize it. If something works for you, doesn't mean it will work for everybody, nor that it can be scientifically true. I know what OP wanted to say, but I think we should stop with those deep minded subconscious thinkings that affect our code. I like syntax highlighting it, it helps me. Not some over the roof-rainbow colors, I always like minimal and dark color schemes, but I think it would definitely feel weird to code without syntax highlighting. Although I would get used to it. But if it ain't broken don't fix it.

masterzora 10y ago
I think comparing text and code actually makes perfect sense but you have to compare the right text. Pick up any reference book. A dictionary, a textbook, a phone book, whatever. Leaf through it a bit. You'll find they all use text formatting to highlight things. The dictionaries I've used typically use bold for a word and its different forms, italics for parts of speech, and such. Phone books similarly use different weights and sizes for names, addresses, and phone numbers. Textbooks use bold and italics to highlight important terms and concepts and students will often mark up the books to further highlight certain things. Code is usually not meant to be read like you would a novel; it's much more like a reference text. For me, at least, syntax highlighting is a tool that supports the ability to more easily find what I need and understand it in isolation. Maybe it would be slower for me to read a syntax-highlighted file token-by-token end-to-end than an un-highlighted one but that's not a use case I ever need.
- Philipp__ 10y ago
  I have to agree with you on that! My bad that I didn't specify what kind of text I was refeering to! I thought of example that was provided in the post.

masterzora 10y ago

I think comparing text and code actually makes perfect sense but you have to compare the right text. Pick up any reference book. A dictionary, a textbook, a phone book, whatever. Leaf through it a bit. You'll find they all use text formatting to highlight things. The dictionaries I've used typically use bold for a word and its different forms, italics for parts of speech, and such. Phone books similarly use different weights and sizes for names, addresses, and phone numbers. Textbooks use bold and italics to highlight important terms and concepts and students will often mark up the books to further highlight certain things. Code is usually not meant to be read like you would a novel; it's much more like a reference text. For me, at least, syntax highlighting is a tool that supports the ability to more easily find what I need and understand it in isolation. Maybe it would be slower for me to read a syntax-highlighted file token-by-token end-to-end than an un-highlighted one but that's not a use case I ever need.

Philipp__ 10y ago
I have to agree with you on that! My bad that I didn't specify what kind of text I was refeering to! I thought of example that was provided in the post.