It's pretty common to look at code without highlighting, for example, in code snippets included with comments here on HN, or printed out on a terminal. Often i

It's pretty common to look at code without highlighting, for example, in code snippets included with comments here on HN, or printed out on a terminal. Often it's not too difficult to understand in that circumstance, but it might well require more effort to grasp vs. syntax highlighted viewing. It suggests familiarity with the code is a crucial variable in determining the utility of highlighting or ability to get by without it. Like others I find highlighting useful for code editing, and agree with the implication that syntax plays a much bigger role in coding vs. reading non-code text. IOW semantics of code is obviously far more dependent on syntactic precision than in ordinary use of language. Finally, the universality of syntax highlighting in code editors is unlikely to be due to degenerate comprehension skills among programmers. Rather it's implicit evidence that highlighting provides substantial productivity benefit to code writers.