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From: paj@mrcu (Paul Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: fancy printing software text Re: tgrind, etc (typesetting programs)
Message-ID: <451@argus.mrcu>
Date: 28 Feb 90 09:44:35 GMT
References: <1990Feb20.235034.21698@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <10975@saturn.ADS.COM>
Reply-To: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson)
Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, UK
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In article <1990Feb20.235034.21698@Neon.Stanford.EDU> rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU
(Tomas G. Rokicki) writes:
[...]
>Make two copies of the same program, one printed with tgrind/WEB/
>whatever, and one just printed out with a monospaced font.  Now try
>and read each.  Which do you really find easier to read?
>
>The rapid font changes (bold keywords, italic identifiers, etc.)
>in the output of such programs as tgrind manage to slow my
>comprehension of the code, by just making it a lot more difficult
>to read.
.....


Interesting.  I guess this is the best group around to discuss this
matter, so....

Does this mean that grinders should emphasise VARIABLE and TYPE names?
I would imagine that the emphasise-keyword tradition dates back to
ALGOL, and (qwerty strikes again) was introduced then because it
seemed like a good idea.

Have any objective tests been done on code comprehension with
different emphasis styles (I doubt it, its a bit obscure and difficult
to measure, but you never know).  On the other hand, could it be more
a matter of what you are used to?  I have been involved in minor flame
wars at work over indentation style: everyone seems to find everyone
elses style incomprehensible.  We are all used to no emphasis (as on
terminal screens) so seeing parts of text emphasised might be
off-putting no matter how it is done.

Paul.

-- 
Paul Johnson                               UUCP: <world>!mcvax!ukc!gec-mrc!paj
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