[Python-ideas] 80 character line width vs. something wider

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn]

On May 27, 2009, at 14:29 PM, average wrote:

> BTW, I know the topic's pretty dead by now, but there is a pretty  
> conclusive argument on this topic (which I bring back up only  
> because I find myself continually annoyed at most IDE's).
>
> If the medium *emits* light, it's significantly better to have a  
> dark background (the reverse being true if the medium is  
> reflective--like the surface of a book or Kindle).  Several  
> arguments *support* this and none *contradict* it:

Ah yes, there are arguments and there are arguments.  The ones you  
posted sound very persuasive.  But in several controlled studies, the  
test subjects detected errors at a significantly better rate when the  
background was light than when it was dark.  They did not report  
greater fatigue than the subjects who had a dark background.

I try to rely on arguments only when I can't find controlled studies  
to rely on.

Oh, thanks to denis.spir I now see that the explanation is probably  
due to overall luminance rather than to polarity per se:

http://www.math-nat-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/WE/Psychologie/abteilungen/ 
aap/Dokumente/Buchner-et-al.-in-press-Ergonomics.pdf

Although this probably doesn't change the fact that you'll find  
errors better if you set your background to be light and your text to  
be dark.

Regards,

Zooko

P.S.  The tenuous link to the topic of this list is that if there  
*were* any controlled studies about Python programmers using  
different line lengths, then they could give us something to go on.   
Maybe somebody out there knows how to get research funding for  
experimenting on programmers?  That would be wonderful.