5 ms·

I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper "dark" themes to be more commonplace. I'm going out on a limb, but perhaps macOS' Dark Mode, or VSC

I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper "dark" themes to be more commonplace. I'm going out on a limb, but perhaps macOS' Dark Mode, or VSCode's dark mode, wouldn't exist without Solarized blazing that path. It's kinda funny how, before Solarized, I would see tons of gimmicky themes like some that were going for a Matrix or "classic terminal" feel, going all in on a certain theme but eschewing real usefulness. I want my basic terminal colors to remain adjacent to their intended hues! I want different keywords/tokens in my code to be distinguishable! Ethan's application of color theory/science to the landscape was like a beacon in the darkness. Before Solarized, I used Zenburn (I actually still do in some environments, I'm not too keen on the blueish hue of Solarized backround.) I also like Tango Light/Dark.

soulofmischief 4y ago
I feel like we've had a similar theme journey. These days I use darcula and its derivatives I some places, Solarized in others. Tango dark as well. And fond memories with Zenburn. Monokai gets an honorable mention.
29athrowaway 4y ago
If you used Borland C++, DBase, Lotus 123, WordStar and others... or used a monochromatic monitor (green, cyan or white on black), you used light text on a dark background. By 2010, when Solarized appeared, the larger portion of the people that started coding on a light text on dark background had already retired. Solarized did a good job in terms of distribution, I give you that 100%. But it is not the most important theme in history or anything of the sort.
- mihaic 4y ago
  Not sure why you're downvoted, but anyone that fondly remembers the "Borland Blue" days probably agrees with you.
  - _0ffh 4y ago
    Certainly! I remember being quite annoyed when I started encountering editors/IDEs, that would not let me type light-on-dark!
  - cstross 4y ago
    Possibly the downvotes are because folks (like me) who started coding in light text on dark backgrounds in the 80s had emphatically not hit retirement age by 2010? They'd be between their late thirties and maybe late fifties, unless you want to push it all the way back to the 1970s or earlier -- the build-out of computing infrastructure over the past century has been exponential, so there is always a preponderance of young/new developers, but with retirement age nearing 70 folks who began programming in the early 1970s are in many cases still working. (I went sideways and left software development entirely. But I'm 58 and very much still working with text on screens and routinely use dark mode.)
    - mosburger 4y ago
      As a 48 year old who's feeling quite burnt out, I'm curious to learn more about this sideways move... I'm feeling a bit trapped right now. :( EDIT: Ah, checked your profile and history and it seems like you've become a writer? Hmm... maybe I could do that... (BTW, the SSL cert for your website has expired!) EDIT2: Thanks for the advice on writing, all! Honestly, I was thinking of taking the technical writer route. I've always been pretty good at authoring things like technical specs, so it seemed like a potential "lateral move," albeit one that probably pays a hell of a lot less than software development. I'm suspect that technical writing has some of the same soul-crushing aspects of software development, so perhaps it wouldn't even be worth it.
      - yojo 4y ago
        If you want to become a writer, you should definitely have a financial cushion. Replicating Stross’s success will almost certainly take years of minimally paid hard work, plus a fair bit of luck. Writing is a hard, hard business. Unless you can write proficiently in the romance genre. There’s gold in them hills.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  Macintosh and Sun machines had black text on white backgrounds. Suns had incredibly large screens with lots of dots. Commodore 64s defaulted to white on blue. Apple II and IBM machines all started out with monochrome white (green, amber) on black.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    Amiga had white on dark blue by default as well, until 1990 (release of AmigaOS 2.0), when they switched to black on grey by default. There was a long and significant period of reaction to the light on dark UI's where a lot of applications arrived either with light on dark as the default or with no option to change it, so I can understand why someone would see solarized as that start of a change towards (renewed) support for light on dark interfaces, though I do think it's overselling its importance.
- teh_klev 4y ago
  > the larger portion of the people that started coding on a light text on dark background had already retired. We're not that old!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Yeah! (shakes cane) I began coding in the late 80s as a hobby. It led to a career in programming, beginning in the 90s, just out of high school. Turbo Pascal was my first "serious" language. I'm not retired yet.
- UI_at_80x24 4y ago
  I'll add WordPerfect v5.1 for DOS. White text on Blue background.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    And Quattro Pro [dot matrix printer sounds]
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    I used Word 1.0. Same.
- Fnoord 4y ago
  I don't remember C=64 colors (friends had one, we did not) but my PC had MSDOS. The text editor was blue background, grey or white foreground. But DOS itself was gray on black. And I used DOS as my OS because it was lightweight.
- Emigre_ 4y ago
  Memories!… QBasic was white over blue, and Turbo Pascal yellow over blue.
Fnoord 4y ago
My first love for this kind of colorscheme probable goes to KDE's CDE theme (CDE itself being before my time).
Retric 4y ago
What exactly do you mean proper “dark” themes? Being able to swap to coding in light test on a dark or dark text on a light background goes back to at least windows 3.11. Solarized dark theme to me looks just like several other similar themes that predate it ex: https://superuser.com/questions/156979/how-to-i-use-textmate-color-themes-with-vim https://superuser.com/questions/156979/how-to-i-use-textmate... But I assume you have something specific in mind here?
- wakaru44 4y ago
  I would assume 'proper' means 'adequate in terms of function and aesthetics'. maybe something like 'themes that don't eschew real usefulness'. those themes did exist before solarized, but they were not the norm in many circles (mine included), as many authors did sacrifice function for the look&feel. solarized demonstrated how to apply colour theory/science to the landscape. I would add that it has been not just the theme that serves as an example, also the _how to make_ a theme following those principles.
  - Retric 4y ago
    > not the norm in many circles (mine included) Fair enough, I have the opposite experience where most people using dark UI’s where doing so for utility reasons not aesthetics. Outside of a brief fad of Matrix themed terminals which quickly died out.
beachy 4y ago
> I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper "dark" themes to be more commonplace. Apart from the IBM 3279 color terminal, released in 1974, and literally hundreds of devices following (and maybe preceding) that.
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  keyword being "proper" as in "good", as opposed to "whatever the technical limitations allowed"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

soulofmischief 4y ago

I feel like we've had a similar theme journey. These days I use darcula and its derivatives I some places, Solarized in others. Tango dark as well. And fond memories with Zenburn. Monokai gets an honorable mention.

29athrowaway 4y ago

If you used Borland C++, DBase, Lotus 123, WordStar and others... or used a monochromatic monitor (green, cyan or white on black), you used light text on a dark background. By 2010, when Solarized appeared, the larger portion of the people that started coding on a light text on dark background had already retired. Solarized did a good job in terms of distribution, I give you that 100%. But it is not the most important theme in history or anything of the sort.

mihaic 4y ago
Not sure why you're downvoted, but anyone that fondly remembers the "Borland Blue" days probably agrees with you.
- _0ffh 4y ago
  Certainly! I remember being quite annoyed when I started encountering editors/IDEs, that would not let me type light-on-dark!
- cstross 4y ago
  Possibly the downvotes are because folks (like me) who started coding in light text on dark backgrounds in the 80s had emphatically not hit retirement age by 2010? They'd be between their late thirties and maybe late fifties, unless you want to push it all the way back to the 1970s or earlier -- the build-out of computing infrastructure over the past century has been exponential, so there is always a preponderance of young/new developers, but with retirement age nearing 70 folks who began programming in the early 1970s are in many cases still working. (I went sideways and left software development entirely. But I'm 58 and very much still working with text on screens and routinely use dark mode.)
  - mosburger 4y ago
    As a 48 year old who's feeling quite burnt out, I'm curious to learn more about this sideways move... I'm feeling a bit trapped right now. :( EDIT: Ah, checked your profile and history and it seems like you've become a writer? Hmm... maybe I could do that... (BTW, the SSL cert for your website has expired!) EDIT2: Thanks for the advice on writing, all! Honestly, I was thinking of taking the technical writer route. I've always been pretty good at authoring things like technical specs, so it seemed like a potential "lateral move," albeit one that probably pays a hell of a lot less than software development. I'm suspect that technical writing has some of the same soul-crushing aspects of software development, so perhaps it wouldn't even be worth it.
    - yojo 4y ago
      If you want to become a writer, you should definitely have a financial cushion. Replicating Stross’s success will almost certainly take years of minimally paid hard work, plus a fair bit of luck. Writing is a hard, hard business. Unless you can write proficiently in the romance genre. There’s gold in them hills.
dsr_ 4y ago
Macintosh and Sun machines had black text on white backgrounds. Suns had incredibly large screens with lots of dots. Commodore 64s defaulted to white on blue. Apple II and IBM machines all started out with monochrome white (green, amber) on black.
- vidarh 4y ago
  Amiga had white on dark blue by default as well, until 1990 (release of AmigaOS 2.0), when they switched to black on grey by default. There was a long and significant period of reaction to the light on dark UI's where a lot of applications arrived either with light on dark as the default or with no option to change it, so I can understand why someone would see solarized as that start of a change towards (renewed) support for light on dark interfaces, though I do think it's overselling its importance.
teh_klev 4y ago
> the larger portion of the people that started coding on a light text on dark background had already retired. We're not that old!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Yeah! (shakes cane) I began coding in the late 80s as a hobby. It led to a career in programming, beginning in the 90s, just out of high school. Turbo Pascal was my first "serious" language. I'm not retired yet.
UI_at_80x24 4y ago
I'll add WordPerfect v5.1 for DOS. White text on Blue background.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  And Quattro Pro [dot matrix printer sounds]
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  I used Word 1.0. Same.
Fnoord 4y ago
I don't remember C=64 colors (friends had one, we did not) but my PC had MSDOS. The text editor was blue background, grey or white foreground. But DOS itself was gray on black. And I used DOS as my OS because it was lightweight.
Emigre_ 4y ago
Memories!… QBasic was white over blue, and Turbo Pascal yellow over blue.

Fnoord 4y ago

My first love for this kind of colorscheme probable goes to KDE's CDE theme (CDE itself being before my time).

Retric 4y ago

What exactly do you mean proper “dark” themes? Being able to swap to coding in light test on a dark or dark text on a light background goes back to at least windows 3.11. Solarized dark theme to me looks just like several other similar themes that predate it ex: https://superuser.com/questions/156979/how-to-i-use-textmate-color-themes-with-vim https://superuser.com/questions/156979/how-to-i-use-textmate... But I assume you have something specific in mind here?

wakaru44 4y ago
I would assume 'proper' means 'adequate in terms of function and aesthetics'. maybe something like 'themes that don't eschew real usefulness'. those themes did exist before solarized, but they were not the norm in many circles (mine included), as many authors did sacrifice function for the look&feel. solarized demonstrated how to apply colour theory/science to the landscape. I would add that it has been not just the theme that serves as an example, also the _how to make_ a theme following those principles.
- Retric 4y ago
  > not the norm in many circles (mine included) Fair enough, I have the opposite experience where most people using dark UI’s where doing so for utility reasons not aesthetics. Outside of a brief fad of Matrix themed terminals which quickly died out.

beachy 4y ago

> I credit Solarized with setting the baseline allowing proper "dark" themes to be more commonplace. Apart from the IBM 3279 color terminal, released in 1974, and literally hundreds of devices following (and maybe preceding) that.

AceJohnny2 4y ago
keyword being "proper" as in "good", as opposed to "whatever the technical limitations allowed"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]