[strainer]

I read code which is not highlighted with little want for color, except certain cases like mixed php and html where I find it really helpful to have the two separated into different hues eg. green/blue and yellow/red.

So I find the trend for color schemes with many lexical types colored differently, unpleasant to the eye and usually of little practical advantage.

The more different things we try to distinguish in a color theme, the harder it is to produce a comfortable aesthetic and the harder it is to make things which should advance or retreat from the eye, to do so.

Keywords can take pleasant color slots which are not the most easily read, because their color confirms they are typed correctly. There is little advantage and much overhead in theming keywords of different types differently. Strings types can all share a hue similarity with small difference to help notice single or double quotes etc. Escaped chars are good to stand out a bit, within the appropriate quotation hue. Comments should be in color range which retreats from the eye a little and is well separated from the executable hues.

I feel its all window dressing, plain text is just a little harder to scan for things than nicely syntax highlighted. Busy, un-finessed syntax highlighting is more of a quirk to be tolerated than it is a comfort.