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> Note how nobody ever got the idea to apply syntax highlighting to English or any other natural language Yes they have? It's a fairly common method of teachin

> Note how nobody ever got the idea to apply syntax highlighting to English or any other natural language Yes they have? It's a fairly common method of teaching children sentence structure. Pedagogy aside, take a look at what books looked like before the printing press. > for experienced readers syntax parsing happens as automatically as it does in natural language without any need of colors. If you're reading slowly, yes. The colours help you skim-read. Why do you feel the need to intentionally hobble yourself? The human eyes can take in a spectacular amount of visual information at a glance, using colour, texture, shape and so on to instantly classify and identify things. Decades of visual design research have proven that colours and shapes improve understanding and you're using a device capable of complex and rich information display, but you want it to look like a book because ..?

applfanboysbgon 17d ago
> Yes they have? It's a fairly common method of teaching children sentence structure. I literally mentioned it for learners. I meant for "improving reading speed". Syntax highlighting is like a crutch that helps you walk but is slower than being able to walk normally. > Why do you feel the need to intentionally hobble yourself? The human eyes can take in a spectacular amount of visual information at a glance, using colour, texture, shape and so on to instantly classify and identify things. [...] Decades of visual design research have proven that colours and shapes [...] Because the colors and shapes you're talking about are for differentiating things. Colors and symbols improve understanding when used sparingly, if your UI is just a page full of colorful shapes and symbols it becomes a nightmare to navigate. Likewise, differentiating every third word in a sentence is counterproductive. It's text. We spend our entire lives reading text. Our eyes are already trained to skim text as a unit. I seriously doubt there's any research suggesting that making every word colorful and breaking up their flow improves reading speed compared to letting the text be a cohesive string you can parse quickly.

applfanboysbgon 17d ago

> Yes they have? It's a fairly common method of teaching children sentence structure. I literally mentioned it for learners. I meant for "improving reading speed". Syntax highlighting is like a crutch that helps you walk but is slower than being able to walk normally. > Why do you feel the need to intentionally hobble yourself? The human eyes can take in a spectacular amount of visual information at a glance, using colour, texture, shape and so on to instantly classify and identify things. [...] Decades of visual design research have proven that colours and shapes [...] Because the colors and shapes you're talking about are for differentiating things. Colors and symbols improve understanding when used sparingly, if your UI is just a page full of colorful shapes and symbols it becomes a nightmare to navigate. Likewise, differentiating every third word in a sentence is counterproductive. It's text. We spend our entire lives reading text. Our eyes are already trained to skim text as a unit. I seriously doubt there's any research suggesting that making every word colorful and breaking up their flow improves reading speed compared to letting the text be a cohesive string you can parse quickly.