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I thought this was going to be about semantic coloring: https://medium.com/@evnbr/coding-in-color-3a6db2743a1e https://medium.com/@evnbr/coding-in-color-3a6db27

I thought this was going to be about semantic coloring: https://medium.com/@evnbr/coding-in-color-3a6db2743a1e https://medium.com/@evnbr/coding-in-color-3a6db2743a1e I think semantic coloring makes way more sense than this or syntax highlighting because it helps you see the actual flow of the code, unlike syntax highlighting which helps you see the syntactic structure of the code (should be second nature to any expert) and unlike this which merely helps you see comments (which even in the example in the blogpost is secondary information to what the code actually does, which is usually the main thing I want to know when I read code).

maaaats 7y ago
I tried rainbow/semantic coloring for a while, but felt it messed with my pattern recognizion. And when everything is highlighted, nothing is, it felt loud.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  I totally get what you mean about loudness, I toned down the brightness (technically, saturation) of the colors in the palette I used once I started using semantic coloring. I don't know what you mean about "when everything is highlighted, nothing is"—shouldn't they be highlighted different colors, often diametrically opposed colors? With my coloring most of the time I don't even notice the semantic coloring except when I'm looking for it, especially when I type a long variable or method name and I'm thinking "did I spell this right?", if I see the same name somewhere else and if it has the same color, then I have high confidence I didn't make any typos.
  - pests 7y ago
    That usage reminds me of the now old visual password shape/color demos that let you know you typed your password correctly when it matches your expectations. I don't think it caught on anywhere though.
    - laughinghan 7y ago
      That seems like that would sacrifice A LOT of entropy, that doesn't sound worthwhile at all.
hiccuphippo 7y ago
Intellij highlights all uses of a variable when you put the cursor on top of it, which I think is enough for me.

maaaats 7y ago

I tried rainbow/semantic coloring for a while, but felt it messed with my pattern recognizion. And when everything is highlighted, nothing is, it felt loud.

laughinghan 7y ago
I totally get what you mean about loudness, I toned down the brightness (technically, saturation) of the colors in the palette I used once I started using semantic coloring. I don't know what you mean about "when everything is highlighted, nothing is"—shouldn't they be highlighted different colors, often diametrically opposed colors? With my coloring most of the time I don't even notice the semantic coloring except when I'm looking for it, especially when I type a long variable or method name and I'm thinking "did I spell this right?", if I see the same name somewhere else and if it has the same color, then I have high confidence I didn't make any typos.
- pests 7y ago
  That usage reminds me of the now old visual password shape/color demos that let you know you typed your password correctly when it matches your expectations. I don't think it caught on anywhere though.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    That seems like that would sacrifice A LOT of entropy, that doesn't sound worthwhile at all.

hiccuphippo 7y ago

Intellij highlights all uses of a variable when you put the cursor on top of it, which I think is enough for me.