HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

My synthesis of the acme/plan9 folks and the mainstream is that color can be useful in an environment, but the way it's currently used is not. Like this guy points out, there's no point highlighting language keywords; we're just doing it because it's easy to do so. Rather conserve the color and our attention for when it's truly needed.

But the need for color seems too strong to fight with pure rationality. Perhaps it's enough that adding a little color to an environment we spend a significant amount of our lives in makes us happy. Since I have no taste, garishness doesn't bother me :)

Here's an example of color being used in a relatively staid place -- and paying for itself: https://plus.google.com/110440139189906861022/posts/UqyUZdqP...

Hopefully these considerations will be subsumed by new research by Bret Victor or Rune Madsen (http://vimeo.com/61113159).

For now, here's my preferred syntax highlighting, with just a dash of color in most usual places, but two colors for comments: http://i.imgur.com/H1h7M.png. (Why 2 comment colors? http://akkartik.name/post/2012-11-24-18-10-36-soc has the scoop.) Notice how the left pane is C++ and the right pane is my toy lisp, and the syntax kinda harmonizes.

⬐ mixmastamyk

> there's no point highlighting language keywords;

Disagree, it helps confirm you typed it correctly when you are trying to, and that you've named something incompatibly when you aren't. Thereby very likely preventing syntax/name errors before they happen.

⬐ vorg

> there's no point highlighting language keywords; we're just doing it because it's easy to do so. Rather conserve the color and our attention for when it's truly needed.

Yes, highlighting language keywords is like capitalizing or bolding the unstressed words in English:

  THERE IS A book ABOUT programming ON THE table.

⬐ jlgreco

I have little objection to some people preferring fewer colors or having fewer things called out for coloring. What I don't understand is the leap from "This particular scheme is totally overdoing it" to "Let's discard the notion entirely" Merely adjusting the colors that you use and the things that you highlight seems like a clear winning solution.

I recently gave a talk about programmatic art at Heroku's conference.

https://vimeo.com/groups/waza2013/videos/61113159

My lecture notes may be of interested to you also:

http://www.runemadsen.com/printing-code

For example:

http://www.runemadsen.com/printing-code/lecture-form

⬐ smrtinsert

I just peaked at these, and I'm bookmarking a million times over. I'm very interested in this space right now, thanks so much with sharing your knowledge.

⬐ vijayr

Totally agreed, this is incredible.

If someone wants to learn, what would be the best place to get started? as in - books, software etc? Also, is there a self paced course?

⬐ ryalfalpha

That's a really great resource, thanks for sharing!

⬐ noelwelsh

Great notes! Thanks for sharing.

⬐ illyism

Whoa, you are amazing! As both a designer and programmer this is what I've always wanted to do. Your course is a good start for me. I've seen most of the things in the lectures but they're still a good refresher.

http://www.runemadsen.com/printing-code/lecture-intro

⬐ runemadsen

Speaker here. Thinking about writing something longer about this, so would love some feedback.