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Comment by em-bee

4 months ago

with the same argument i used to reject syntax highlighting in general. all the information should already be in the code. if i can't read that, then the syntax of the language is bad. syntax highlighting would just make me lazy. i have since decided that i like being lazy so i do like to use it, but you make a good point, if the use of colors makes you not write something in the code that you would otherwise, then that's not good. i can see that with syntax highlighting too, where the colors help me read code even if it is badly formatted, so i am less inclined to format for readability.

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em-bee

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1718627440  4 months ago

True, but I haven't experienced that for general syntax highlighting. I do read the code through cat or in other contexts often enough that I haven't lost the ability to read code at normal speed without syntax highlighting. Do you have an example?

  • em-bee  4 months ago

    i wasn't talking about the ability to read code, even though that was my initial argument for rejecting colors. what i mean is that without colors i might take more effort to write/format code so that it is more readable, instead of relying on syntax highlighting:

    with colors this is perfectly readable, because if, for and return appear in red, and other keywords in blue. so they stand out, making the structure more visible than without colors.

        mixed reduce(function fun, array arr, mixed|void zero) {
      if(sizeof(arr))
        zero = arr[0];
      for(int i=1; i<sizeof(arr); i++)
        zero = ([function(mixed,mixed:mixed)]fun)(zero, arr[i]);
      return zero; }

    without colors i might prefer to write something like this. using braces around each block, and line breaks, to make each part stand out.

        mixed reduce(function fun, array arr, mixed|void zero)
    {
      if(sizeof(arr))
      {  
        zero = arr[0];
      }

      for(int i=1; i<sizeof(arr); i++)
      {
        zero = ([function(mixed,mixed:mixed)]fun)(zero, arr[i]);
      }

      return zero;
    }

    without colors clearly the second is easier to read.

    github uses a different color scheme but maybe you can get the idea:

    https://github.com/pikelang/Pike/blob/fe4b7ef78cc26316e62e79...

    • 1718627440  4 months ago

      I see. I'm typically quite pedantic and start reformatting code manually as soon as a single space is off.

      I've never seen that language. Looks C like (e.g. sizeof), but seams to have a harder type system.

    • skydhash  4 months ago

      For me it would be like this:

          mixed reduce(function fun, array arr, mixed|void zero) {
      if(sizeof(arr))
        zero = arr[0];

      for(int i=1; i<sizeof(arr); i++)
        zero = ([function(mixed,mixed:mixed)]fun)(zero, arr[i]);

      return zero; 
  }

      I only want to isolate blocks (around 10 lines at most) then I can dive in if necessary. I'm using minimal syntax highlighting in Emacs, but I can do fine without.

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