5 ms·

Almost everyone intuitively knows that red = deletion and green = insertion. Nobody knows what yellow and blue refers to. So how is that more usable?

freshhawk 12y ago
I'm pretty sure I learned that convention. Why would it be intuitive? What's the association between red/remove and green/add?
- robinh 12y ago
  The color red is often associated with bad; needs to stop; wrong. Removal isn't such a big step from there, I think. The opposite probably applies to green.
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    Right, that's the point. Removal shouldn't be thought of as "bad" and the red/green == bad/good association does seem to be fairly deep.
- daveid 12y ago
  I think that pretty much everywhere green==positive and red==negative.
  - kens 12y ago
    Since I'm sitting here with a voltmeter next to me, I'll point out that red==positive and black==negative. The bigger point I'd like to make is that any talk of universal connotations of colors is probably wrong unless you've really studied it carefully. For some history on why red means stop and green means go, see Straight Dope: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/437/who-decided-red-means-stop-and-green-means-go http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/437/who-decided-red... Apparently it dates back to early railroads, where red meant stop, green meant caution, and white meant go. They discovered this wasn't failsafe when the red filter fell out, the train saw a white light and crashed. So they moved to green for go.
    - Flenser 12y ago
      Although red was chosen in the case of electricity to signify danger, so it still has a "negative" connotation in terms of touching it.
  - sitkack 12y ago
    Have you been everywhere? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    Not even close; red is positive across large swathes of the world. There's a reason the USSR flag was solid red.
    - rmc 12y ago
      Socialism?
      - thaumasiotes 12y ago
        ...no? As in China, they adopted red because of its preexisting immense popularity (well, for the USSR it seems they also drew on some "revolution is red" symbolism). Your causation is running backwards. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union : > The colour red has always been a positive symbol in the Russian culture. The word red (Russian: красный, krasnyy) is etymologically related with the Russian word for beautiful. This can also be seen in Moscow’s Red Square and the Russian Orthodox festivity, Red Easter.
        rmc 12y ago
        Well. TIL. I thought it was the socialist flag.
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    Well, in western culture yes, definitely. But the whole point is that code removal shouldn't be associated with being negative and so shouldn't be coloured red.
jowiar 12y ago
I don't buy that. Most programmers have learned that, in a diff, red = deletion and green = insertion. But I'm not sure that is "intuitive" as much as "learned behavior".
- rhizome 12y ago
  Red means "stop," green means "go," is also learned behavior.
  - ars 12y ago
    Yup. Especially because on a fruit it's exactly the opposite.
    - rhizome 12y ago
      I've never learned that.
- cheradenine01 12y ago
  In accounts, we often hilight negative numbers in red. It's one of the defaults in things like excel. So red text has come to mean '-'. '-' is also 'taken away', so I can see why it's logical to have it in red. As for green.. well - opposite.
nkrumm 12y ago
In the field of genetics-- and specifically for copy number variation (i.e., big chunks of genome deleted or inserted)-- the red/green contrast was deemed inaccessible to color-blind individuals, and so a new red/blue scheme was implemented as a consensus scheme. red - deletion of genetic sequence blue - insertion of genetic sequence 1: https://www.iscaconsortium.org/index.php/the-news/95-the-meaning-of-red https://www.iscaconsortium.org/index.php/the-news/95-the-mea...
matthewmacleod 12y ago
As per the siblings, I don't really agree that this is intuitive. What it definitely is: widespread, accepted, well-known, not confusing - pretty much the same thing.
RobotCaleb 12y ago
For myself, and many others, green is green and red is also green. That likely presents a problem.

freshhawk 12y ago

I'm pretty sure I learned that convention. Why would it be intuitive? What's the association between red/remove and green/add?

robinh 12y ago
The color red is often associated with bad; needs to stop; wrong. Removal isn't such a big step from there, I think. The opposite probably applies to green.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  Right, that's the point. Removal shouldn't be thought of as "bad" and the red/green == bad/good association does seem to be fairly deep.
daveid 12y ago
I think that pretty much everywhere green==positive and red==negative.
- kens 12y ago
  Since I'm sitting here with a voltmeter next to me, I'll point out that red==positive and black==negative. The bigger point I'd like to make is that any talk of universal connotations of colors is probably wrong unless you've really studied it carefully. For some history on why red means stop and green means go, see Straight Dope: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/437/who-decided-red-means-stop-and-green-means-go http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/437/who-decided-red... Apparently it dates back to early railroads, where red meant stop, green meant caution, and white meant go. They discovered this wasn't failsafe when the red filter fell out, the train saw a white light and crashed. So they moved to green for go.
  - Flenser 12y ago
    Although red was chosen in the case of electricity to signify danger, so it still has a "negative" connotation in terms of touching it.
- sitkack 12y ago
  Have you been everywhere? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  Not even close; red is positive across large swathes of the world. There's a reason the USSR flag was solid red.
  - rmc 12y ago
    Socialism?
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      ...no? As in China, they adopted red because of its preexisting immense popularity (well, for the USSR it seems they also drew on some "revolution is red" symbolism). Your causation is running backwards. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union : > The colour red has always been a positive symbol in the Russian culture. The word red (Russian: красный, krasnyy) is etymologically related with the Russian word for beautiful. This can also be seen in Moscow’s Red Square and the Russian Orthodox festivity, Red Easter.
      - rmc 12y ago
        Well. TIL. I thought it was the socialist flag.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  Well, in western culture yes, definitely. But the whole point is that code removal shouldn't be associated with being negative and so shouldn't be coloured red.

jowiar 12y ago

I don't buy that. Most programmers have learned that, in a diff, red = deletion and green = insertion. But I'm not sure that is "intuitive" as much as "learned behavior".

rhizome 12y ago
Red means "stop," green means "go," is also learned behavior.
- ars 12y ago
  Yup. Especially because on a fruit it's exactly the opposite.
  - rhizome 12y ago
    I've never learned that.
cheradenine01 12y ago
In accounts, we often hilight negative numbers in red. It's one of the defaults in things like excel. So red text has come to mean '-'. '-' is also 'taken away', so I can see why it's logical to have it in red. As for green.. well - opposite.

nkrumm 12y ago

In the field of genetics-- and specifically for copy number variation (i.e., big chunks of genome deleted or inserted)-- the red/green contrast was deemed inaccessible to color-blind individuals, and so a new red/blue scheme was implemented as a consensus scheme. red - deletion of genetic sequence blue - insertion of genetic sequence 1: https://www.iscaconsortium.org/index.php/the-news/95-the-meaning-of-red https://www.iscaconsortium.org/index.php/the-news/95-the-mea...

matthewmacleod 12y ago

As per the siblings, I don't really agree that this is intuitive. What it definitely is: widespread, accepted, well-known, not confusing - pretty much the same thing.

RobotCaleb 12y ago

For myself, and many others, green is green and red is also green. That likely presents a problem.