Good Editor? (What's the big deal with syntax colouring?)

[John Schmitt]

I do typos all the time.  But they very rarely take time to debug because
the compiler will tell me about those instantly.  I spend much more time
with bugs related to poor design or poor code or broken hardware.  

Anyway, the syntax colouring that I've seen also differentiates between
comments, keywords, expressions, literal numerals, literal strings,
pre-processor directives, etc.  Do any of them require, I don't know, more
attention than others?  To me they're equally significant.  Does syntax
colouring move your attention to something important?  Other than typos, I
mean - I can kind of see the value in emphasizing typos.  I also find it
distracting if the editor changes colours on me if I'm adding or deleting
quotes or if the cursor jumps around because I'm adding or deleting
brackets.  My attention span is too short already.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Holden [mailto:sholden at holdenweb.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 8:24 PM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: Good Editor? (What's the big deal with syntax colouring?)


"Timothy Grant" <tjg at exceptionalminds.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.985295730.14145.python-list at python.org...
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 12:10:59PM -0800, John Schmitt wrote:
> > Why do people want syntax colouring?  I can't stand it.  One of my minor
> > beefs with CodeWright is that there isn't a one button way to tell it to
> > change _all_ of my colours all at once.  Am I missing something by
disabling
> > syntax colouring?  It always reminds me of the artwork my 6-year-old
nephew
> > brings home from school to show his mommy.
>
> Hey, I'm colour blind, and I still need syntax highlighting
> though I can't see all of the colour differenctials.
>
> It's pretty simple. Forget to close a ("|')--or open one for
> that matter, and you automatically know somethings wrong
> because the colours are wrong, misspell(sp?) a keyword and you
> know it because it doesn't hi-light in the correct colour.
>
> It is a huge benefit to getting syntax correct before you save
> your file.
>
> Now if only else didn't highlight but else: did<wink>
>
I seem to remember that having to write your source on coding forms, have it
punched up on tape or cards and waiting six hours until the computer center
had deposited the printout in your pigenhole made me similarly careful about
my coding style.

that's-when-i-discovered-semantics-ly y'rs  - steve



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