I must be in the extreme minority, I always prefer light themes.
For me my preference toward dark themes increased through the 2000s along with my need for syntax highlighting as I started writing more complex code. With light themes, syntax colors don’t “pop” nearly as well, giving me fewer visual anchors and making my eyes get lost in the code a lot more easily.
That said, I’m not fond of super dark or pure black-based themes and prefer those with a 75% gray background (with 100% being black) or thereabouts. With pure black themes the code pops too much and it feels like it’s all vying for my eyes’ attention at once.
We're in the same boat, my eyes actually start hurting when I look at a light-on-dark screen for more than a couple of seconds.
I'm just really glad that my web browser has a reader mode, or else there would be quite a few web sites (blogs etc.) that I could not read.
Yeah, I remember back when I was a cringy teenager and bought into all the propaganda about why darkmode was better for eyes and whatnot, so much stuff.. So I spent 15 years or so with darkmode, untile one day, i read somewhere that the evidence of darkmode being better was not just lacking, but that people read dark letters on a bright background faster and more accurately than the other way around.. Now this is the Internet, with a capital I so I won't back up that claim with any references, and it's not important whether anyone believes that or not, fact is, that day, I thought "hm" and I switched my editor back to light mode and thought "hm, this is fine too" and I kept it long enough that I discovered that I prefer it.. Now, my xterm, I do want white on black, but that's just something about how that bitmap font looks to my eyes, that makes me want it that way.
But honestly, I don't get what the big deal is with either preference, it's not a big deal really.. black or white.. it's fine!
I get horrified looks from my dev team when they look at my screen, but I typically use light mode for work, and I find it easier to read by a long shot.
For dev work at home, I use darkmode, but I usually work in a less well-lit environment and for less time.
Exactly. Light mode for coding in the sun. Dark mode for late night hacking.
WIIIIIIIITCH!
Just kidding ;D
I'm actually studying my students' color theme preferences for lecture slides and I'm seeing that while a majority do prefer dark mode, there is noticeable chunk that still prefer light mode. I think some of it may involve time of viewing, but that is another research question I haven't explored quite yet.
I think universally light when using a projector! But maybe nowadays it's remote or big LCDs...
In the daytime I prefer light mode, and at night I prefer dark mode. I think it's somewhat odd to have a preference inconsistent with the time of day.
how long have you been coding? I felt the same in my younger days but discovered over the years that dark mode much more gentle on my eyes.
I actually went back from dark to light! Feels pretty good
Same here. I work in an office with lots of daylight and dark mode makes it actually very hard to see.
Also, light theme allows for more distinguishable colors.
I suffer from astigmatism and dark themes fatigue me a lot.
I just wanted to mention another cool alternative
The author has a YouTube channel where he actually solves a lot of the problems step by step. Really cool as a learning resource
He was actually going through a depression and drug addiction, and then he started making YouTube videos where he solved leetcode problems and eventually he got a job at Google and then he quit that job.
Basically recreated LeetCode on a $5/month VPS lol. It started as a class project but over 800 people joined so I kept refining it for 2 months. It supports running Python, Java, and C++ code (building a code runner is tough). Give it a try and let me know what you think!
The code is also open-source too at https://github.com/beatcode-official
In case it's your own project, I believe the convention is to prefix the title with "Show HN:".
Neetcode uses/used judge0 for code execution but it might be overkill
have a look at this "https://github.com/INGInious/containers" - open-source platform for secure and automated code assessment
I "grew up" coding in bog-standard light mode decades ago, and I guess it just stayed with me? Still do it that way.
EDIT: If you're gonna be devious, just force people to code with blue font over black background.
It’s a fun idea but the ability gimmick makes me not interested. I imagine it will also quickly be overrun by AI copy/pasters.
"Runtime analysis? How is that possible?" I thought...
https://github.com/beatcode-official/server/blob/42169027dda...
Lmao. They need to call that out so the users know not to believe it
Clarifying that it’s the output of an LLM is responsible.
Though LLMs are really good at anything related to plain LeetCode problems. There has been so much written about the standard LeetCode problems across so many websites that it’s all heavily represented in training sets.
In my universe, the only permitted background colors for programming editors are NeXT white, SGI pastel yellow, and Turbo Pascal blue.
> but You Can Force People to Code in Light Mode
As I've aged my preferences have moved away from dark themes to light themes.
I used to have everything in dark mode: terminal, IDE, sublime text, use Dark Reader Chrome extension.
But I can't see shit anymore. I need light!
It might mitigate some of your issues by using themes that are anthracite / charcoal / deep gray instead of pure OLED black. Due to the way screen technology and bad eyes work you often get slight halo-ing or double vision with white text on pure blacks.
Also definitely stay away from Solarized. The contrasts on Solarized get muddled really quickly if you run your screen at low backlight intensity and especially if you use a night light blue filter / orange overlay.
Hope it helps!
Dark editor themes has always been one of the most laughable of orthodoxies in tech. Contrast is key for reducing eye strain, especially for extended sessions. And Solarized doesn’t have nearly enough.
(I suspect a decent chunk of Solarized’s popularity came from the fact it was popular, rather than the “science”-based facade it marketed itself as.)
Oh man, I always thought it was some kind of joke theme or something like holiday themes that people only put on for a lark. I didn't realize people actually used it as a daily driver theme. How is that even possible? Even in my 20s I thought it was terrible.
just tried to play a round, the answer checker failed because it compares the results with `result == eval(expected)`, where `expected` is `"true"`, which is not a thing in Python.
This seems like a fun thing, could it be used for a hackathon type style of event with say group participants up to ~100? I'd love to see some hackathons.
Solarized Light 4 Life lol
Dark mode always strained my eyes like crazy. White bg is too much. Solarized Light works best for me.
Just changing the white background into pale yellowish and leaving black text as it is for better contrast works much better to me.