Look at that font. She must have a hacker brain

Are there things that make work "look Technical" to you? Are there secret signifiers you have become aware of? I love hearing people notice these things

@grimalkina off the top of my head: monospaced fonts, dark mode, hosting things in source control, customer service with issue trackers rather than ticketing systems, Markdown (sort of, that gets complicated), command-line instructions or aesthetics

@glyph @grimalkina +1 to dark mode. "I've... seen things"

@vic @grimalkina there are practical origins to almost all of this. For example, with respect to dark mode, I am old enough to remember discussing raster burn (both senses) at work, and OLED displays are bringing it back (both senses) now. People do have different reactions but for most folks, over the long term, day-long coding sessions on large screens in light mode is a recipe for headaches and brutal eye strain

@glyph @vic (it depends on your situation though, neurology of eyesight is very individual -- I have v complex eyesight with a lot of opposing needs and dark mode immediately gives me headaches and eyestrain. Something about the high contrast is super triggering for me)

@glyph @vic but yeah, signifiers definitely usually have histories with meaning! Still troublesome when they BECOME the meaning

@grimalkina @vic "low contrast" is also such a signifier, perhaps a stronger one than "dark mode" for exactly your reasons. In the 80s, 90s, and 00s when the programmer population was growing really rapidly and thus most were very young, "programmer themes" featured a lot of fullbright green on pitch black. Now that growth has slowed and the population has aged, almost all color schemes are cream-on-dark-grey or vice versa. (I believe you're using Solarized/Light or some derivative, there?)

@grimalkina @vic not saying that you "should" be using dark mode or that the reduced contrast would address your needs — I know exactly what you're talking about with opposing needs. bright-on-dark, even at low contrast, creates problems for me with astigmatism, they're just not as bad as the problems I get from floaters in light mode, not to mention focus tension. I could imagine a situation where these were reversed.

@glyph @vic I have no perfect solution or strong opinion on any of it, to be honest, I am just in a lifelong battle with my eyesight 😭 a big challenge when writing my book actually

@grimalkina @vic if I were going to give advice it would be to get a 20/20/20 timer app if you don't already have one; literally changed my life and all but eliminated constant eyelid twitching I've had since childhood and that is advice which I believe *does* universalize pretty well