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Syntax-coloring editors are the default. Why not make color part of the syntax? Chuck Moore, of course, has done this with Colorforth. I read him somewhere say
by gruseom 16y ago
Syntax-coloring editors are the default. Why not make color part of the syntax?
Chuck Moore, of course, has done this with Colorforth. I read him somewhere saying that by encoding some of the program in color, a visual part of the brain not normally involved in programming was engaged, freeing up other cognitive resources to think about the problem at hand. He didn't put it that dogmatically; it was more of a speculation about he found this use of color so helpful.
- skermes 16y agoThe obvious reason not to make color part of the syntax is that it precludes me from having different colors from whoever designed the language. In my case this is just inconvenient, but for color blind programmers, it could actually be a serious impediment to doing their job. Of course, the solution to this would be to instead provide a UI (presumably in your editor) to change which colors are associated with which syntax bits... which is exactly what we have in any reasonable editor. So... what's the problem?
- IgorPartola 16y agoAnd keep out the colorblind programmers?
- neilk 16y agoAnd the blind programmers.
- obneq 16y agoyou dont need it to be displayed in color to work. you can use other text attributes or tags. the blind programmers prefer black on black color schemes i hear...
- gruseom 16y agoI don't consider this a serious objection. One could just as easily argue that symbolic text "keeps out" the blind programmers. The obvious solution is to provide an alternate representation.