this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Hello emacs and Lisp enthusiasts,

I remember seeing an article that talked about the superfluity of parenthesis in Lisp code, and how non-Lisp programmers were overwhelmed by them, but Lisp programmers had trained their eyes to look at indentation structure and didn't see the parenthesis, and it showed an image of Lisp code without and with the parenthesis faded. I don't have a link to the article, but even as a slightly seasoned Lisper I thought the fainter parenthesis improved readability.

So I'm wondering if/how it's possible to achieve this effect in emacs. Is there already a minor-mode for it? Would it involve a font-lock/face for parenthesis? I've tried to navigate the syntax highlighting code before and was a bit turned off by the apparent complexity, so any form of introduction would be greatly appreciated.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I use the rainbow-delimiters package, which gives you up to 9 faces to set parentheses

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

9?

Holy cow. It may have been RMS who said if you are even "four-deep" it's time to refactor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

No clue about RMS, but I know for a fact Torvalds said that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I also use rainbow-delimiters, but they are a bit too bright in my dark theme, so I:

(use-package rainbow-delimiters
  :config
  ;; Darken them a bit
  (cl-loop for f in (face-list)
	   if (and (string-prefix-p "rainbow-delimiters" (symbol-name f)) 
		   (face-foreground f)) do
	   (set-face-foreground f (color-darken-name (face-foreground f) 15))))

See also color-lighten-name to go the other way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

See the paren-face package. The diagram you mention sounds like the one in the repository README. (I think the diagram has been used in longer article too, but I'm not sure where it originated.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago