I disagree with the author's claim that "A splash of colour may grab the reader's attention, but it will inevitably decrease the legibility of the text."
Funny enough, I've found that adding syntax highlighting to even normal English text makes it more readable. I sometimes turn on a random language's syntax highlighting in e.g. Notepad++ even if the choice of colouring is basically nonsense.
In the article you link, apart from the green on grey, the little example paragraph is actually very nice and readable.
The other issue is that it is too uniform. I like how syntax highlighting tends to make random patterns which kind of looks like pictures in the code - it makes it much easier for me to navigate, and figure out where I was and where I'm going.
There was a link to a study here on HN some year(s) ago where they alternated the colour of each sentence in a text and found the reading speed to be increased. Probably similar effect as making text columns more narrow instead of using the full width of your screen, its easier to navigate and uts easier to read a whole chunk at once instead of word by word.
"...a splash of colour may grab the reader's attention, but it will inevitably decrease the legibility of the text."
This depends entirely on the content of the text. Stories, fiction, non-fiction, reference material ... information where one human is intending to communicate with another human should limit use of color.
For source code, that humans do read but is intended to be parsed and compiled by a computer, I'm not assembling (in my head) the whimsical trials of a protagonist - I need to see structure; color gives me a quicker overview of the structure of a line, function, class, etc.
Funny enough, I've found that adding syntax highlighting to even normal English text makes it more readable. I sometimes turn on a random language's syntax highlighting in e.g. Notepad++ even if the choice of colouring is basically nonsense.
In the article you link, apart from the green on grey, the little example paragraph is actually very nice and readable.
Something like http://www.beelinereader.com/individual would probably make things easier for me, though it costs money.
The other issue is that it is too uniform. I like how syntax highlighting tends to make random patterns which kind of looks like pictures in the code - it makes it much easier for me to navigate, and figure out where I was and where I'm going.