> Personally, I do find syntax highlighting to be useful, but I think it is an interesting dissenting opinion that is worth mentioning. I just think that synta

> Personally, I do find syntax highlighting to be useful, but I think it is an interesting dissenting opinion that is worth mentioning. I just think that syntax highlighting is usually executed really badly, often emphasizing even the least interesting parts of code in the most distracting colors. The analogy to prose is quite adequate. Randomly highlighting the different word classes in a dozen flashy colors would distract me like crazy; but nobody would argue against using a larger font for headings and a smaller one for footnotes. If I was programming all day, I would probably spend considerable time creating very subtle syntax highlighting themes for different languages (something like: slate function names, white strings, everything else grey, italic variable names). But I don't, so I usually just turn off syntax highlighting entirely.