I've never written software outside of an editor without syntax highlighting. Always found it useful, even a necessity when I just started learning. Lately though I'm questioning if it's holding me back, maybe preventing me from seeing the forest for the trees...
Any devs among Jow Forums who've tried working with syntax highlighting on and off? Has it been better or worse?
Is Syntax Highlighting Bad?
Jonathan Fisher
Carter Peterson
Why would a tool aimed at helping you to visualize correct syntax hold you back? Explain your reasoning to me, please.
Alexander Nguyen
I feel that colorizing syntax adds noise to a degree makes me "jump around" and parse colors instead of the actual meaning of what I write. Also maybe I'm depending too much on "seeing the right colors" instead of seeing the correct syntax and semantics.
It's just a hunch and personal doubt, questioning whether or not my habits are really helping me. I don't have a real concrete hypothesis. I don't use syntax highlighting when I do math or writing, so maybe I shouldn't when coding. Or perhaps vice versa? IDK.
Benjamin Hill
>I don't use syntax highlighting when I do [...] writing
Well, I do and it's of great assistance. By syntax highlighting I of course mean highlighting misspelled words, grammatical errors, turning on the paragraph feature if I'm using Word or something similar or actual highlighting of syntax if I'm writing LaTeX or Markdown.
Brandon Howard
minimal highlighting I want is to distinguish comments and strings
Easton Myers
Over time auto correct has degraded my spelling and grammar abilities because I've become too comfortable having them around. (Just a personal feeling, again.) There's other allusions to this as well.
When I started writing software, I habitually Googled every little thing. While Google has the answer to just about goddamn everything, I eventually sensed I was too dependent on it. I was at the point I forsook thinking through issues and properly learning.
Same goes for driving. I habitually use Google Maps/Waze to drive places and while they work, they crutch me from developing a better sense of navigation.
I'm not espousing living without these niceties, but I think training without might make us all the better with.
Ethan Garcia
Skilled programmers don't use syntax highlighting.
Brayden Rodriguez
There's certainly such a thing as "too much color" or "too many colors".
Done properly it helps you focus on the right things faster. Skimming the code is what you will do most of the time.
Clearly seeing function definitions, return statements, loops, etc. is very well worth it.
It also helps to avoid a lot of typos: this "whlie" is not in the right color? Sure enough, I mistyped it.
Of course you can have errors and warnings shown without highlighting but that's not a replacement.
Anyway, if you find yourself being distracted by the colors, try different color schemes, possibly other editors. Without colors you might end up looking for bugs in comments or string literals which is not a good use of your time.
Cameron Turner
while we're all here, which editor does scope highlightning? ie no differentiation of literals/strings/keywords etc but just of number of paranthesis/curlyboy/tags etc depending on language
Cooper Kelly
1-800 come on now.