this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2025
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Programming

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I am sorry, but everyone is getting syntax highlighting wrong (tonsky.me)
submitted 2 weeks ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 28 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There are two main use-cases you want your color theme to address:

  1. Look at something and tell what it is by its color (you can tell by reading text, yes, but why do you need syntax highlighting then?)
  2. Search for something. You want to know what to look for (which color).

I disagree. I want syntax highlighting because I think it’s easier to read. I don’t care much about which color everything is, just that different things have different colors. I don’t remember any color mappings, and I’m never thrown off guard if the color mapping change.

When I read var count = 0L, I want to know that var is syntactically different from count, and count is different from 0L. That’s it.

[–] Kacarott@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

Exactly!! Having each different part be different colours essentially breaks the code into larger "tokens" which is much easier to read than letting your eyes get lost in a sea of uniformity.

It's not about knowing which colour is variables and which colour is functions. It's about there being some contrast between them.