Description Antti Karanta 2005-07-05 08:38:20 EDT

Statically typed languages, such as Java, force one to have a lot of noise in 
the code just to keep the compiler happy. When reading the code, variable type 
declarations, typecasts, method return types, visibilities etc. often make the 
reading of the code very difficult. This is something I love e.g. in Ruby - the 
code is very readable as there is very little noise.

So, I came up with an idea: IDE could be of help in reducing the noise. It would 
be possible to use font sizes to make the code appear so that it is easier to 
read. The kind of stuff I mentioned above would be in a smaller font (possibly 
even a different font? Scite editor uses this and having e.g. comments in 
different font enhances the readability incredibly) thus making the reading 
easier. 
  The solution should be wholly configurable, so the user could select which of 
the following (and possibly others?) are "diminished":

- method return types
- method visibilities
- method argument types
- types in variable declarations
- typecasts
etc. 
It should also be configurable what font size to use for the diminished things, 
possibly stating size relative to the editor font size (e.g. -4).

I tried it out quickly in Word and I find it very appealing, please see the 
attached word doc.

The advantage of this approach is that you can still see the "noisy" elements, 
but it is easier to ignore them. Also, sometimes you might want to e.g. see the 
visibilities of the methods with no "diminishing", then you could choose to do 
so.