Syntax Highlighting Off
I don&#x27;t understand the reasoning behind this. What possible benefit could you get from turning off all syntax highlighting?<p>It&#x27;s useful to distinguish between language keywords and user specified names. Being able to visually ignore one of them, while focusing on the other, is a tremendous benefit. It cuts down the number of things you need to hold in your head at once, by half.<p>It&#x27;s useful to distinguish between local variables and instance variables. It helps to better understand the dependencies that exist between a method and other methods&#x2F;state.<p>It&#x27;s useful to distinguish between mutable variables, and constants. It tells you at a glance how something is being used, and the pitfalls you need to watch out for.<p>Turning off all syntax highlighting destroys all of the benefits above, and I can&#x27;t think of any notable benefit you would get out of it.<p>I guarantee you, whatever &quot;upside&quot; you think you&#x27;re feeling right now, it&#x27;s simply the novelty effect. This is a very common phenomenon in AB testing. Often times, you see an initial improvement, simply because users respond positively to the initial novelty of something being different. I guarantee you, if you continue to work without syntax highlighting for 6 months, and then turn it back on for a few weeks, you&#x27;ll realize how much you actually love it.