一句话：重新审视现代 IDE 中语法高亮是否帮助编程新手理解程序，并指出现有证据不一致。
程序理解是程序员扩展和调试代码所需的重要技能，而语法高亮是支持开发者理解算法的最常用工具之一。然而，大多数关于代码高亮的研究已有 20 多年历史，当时程序员使用的工具链与今天完全不同；较新的、针对现代集成开发环境中语法高亮效果的研究结果并不一致。本文以“语法高亮是否帮助编程新手”为核心问题，回顾并讨论这一研究空白，指出现代 IDE 语境下需要重新评估语法高亮对新手程序理解的作用。摘要未给出具体实验方法或最终结论，但明确将问题定位于编程新手、现代开发工具与程序理解之间的关系。
Program comprehension is an important skill for programmers - extending and debugging existing source code is part of the daily routine. Syntax highlighting is one of the most common tools used to support developers in understanding algorithms. However, most research on code highlighting is more than 20 years old, when programmers used a completely different tool chain. Newer results on the effect of syntax highlighting as used in modern Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are inconclusive.
DOI 原文 ·
@inproceedings{paperbot4527,
title = {Does syntax highlighting help programming novices?},
author = {Christoph Hannebauer and Marc Hesenius and Volker Gruhn},
booktitle = {ICSE},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1145/3180155.3182554}
}