In the first few sentences he expressly states why you want highlighting: > I couldn’t skip through the source that fast anymore and it became harder to read

In the first few sentences he expressly states why you want highlighting: > I couldn’t skip through the source that fast anymore and it became harder to read Which, yes all the modifications to style (which is only his own code by the way) helped factor out. But I bet he'd be even better now with highlighting that he's made these additional changes to his style. I worked for years without syntax highlighting. I am much more efficient with it for exactly the reason quoted. To each their own, but having visual cues to help is not a bad thing. I want my job to be easier. I used to program black on white, then I was converted after jetbrains came out with an excellent dark theme with huge color variants that make code pop even better. I'll never go back; I want my work and job easy, not made harder.