Highlighting My Code Based on How Much I Care
A developer shares their experience creating a grayscale syntax highlighting theme for code editors. The project was inspired by critiques of overly colorful themes that can distract from functional reading.
Why it matters
Optimizing development environments can improve productivity and reduce eye strain for software engineers.
After failing multiple times to create a light color theme that was not distracting, I attempted to create one that was entirely grayscale. The goal was to make certain elements stand out—more or less—against the baseline of black-on-white variable references and function calls. Relatively subtle changes in text and background brightness were enough to achieve a smoother and more efficient reading experience.
I was reading an article by Nikita Prokopov about how "everyone is getting syntax highlighting wrong" [1] . It struck me that I never really thought about my code being highlighted. I'm pretty basic and have used the default VSCode Dark Theme since I switched away from JetBrains forever ago. I've gotten so accustomed to the same theme and colors that over the years I became blind to it.
This section in particular of Nikita's post stood out to me:
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