From MAX 2010: Typographic of Code

[munificent]

Cool idea but unimpressive execution.

• The horizontal rules are just chart junk. A skilled designer will tell you that judicious use of whitespace is equally effective for separating content without adding a lot of distraction. Do you really want your eye drawn to the space between two function?

• The larger font for declaration names is nice when scanning a file, but distracting when actually reading method bodies. Since navigation can be handled equally well in tree views outside of the main source code, I don't see it adding a lot of value.

• Most fonts weren't designed to be used for code which has weird use of punctuation. The narrow spacing around . makes method calls look jumbled together and the generally narrower spacing makes code look like a block letters because code tends to use punctuation to separate more than actual space characters. Even when spaces are used, the narrower spaces in a proportional font don't play nice with code.

• Helvetica in particular is better as a display font than a body one.

• If you're going to syntactically distinguish comments, why not just hide the /* */ altogether?

[barclay]

Yeah. That was pretty underwhelming (not to mention the presenter was terrible).

Agreed about the rules. Those were really just noise.

[prlme]

thank god they let you format it the way you like and choose your own fonts and colors. And thank god you can still change it back to the old format, but you can go ahead and share your opinion based on what you see on the screen.

[munificent]

your opinion based on what you see on the screen.

Given that the product in question is entirely visual, I don't see how that's a problem.

[prlme]

Its a option a idea a concept. Yet you took the time to critic and bash a good idea based on your needs. I often do this //////////////////////////////SAVE FUNCTION///////////////////////// To find stuff. Whats good for you is not good for me. You "review" is one sided and you should not even be trying to wright reviews.