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Suraj Vishwakarma
Suraj Vishwakarma

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at surajondev.com

Why Most Developers Prefer The Dark Theme IDE?

Introduction

According to a survey, 70% of software engineers prefer a Dark theme IDE over the light theme. You will always a lot of dark theme in the popular theme section of any IDE. So why? Developers love the dark theme. So here I am going to list some reasons why I like the Dark theme.

1. Soothing to Eye

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As obvious a dark theme helps us to focus on the screen without having irritation in our eyes. The dark theme doesn't make we go dry as compared to the white theme. During the low light situation, Dark theme is the most preferred theme.

2. More Concentration

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Human eyes easily find something brighter in dark surround, it comes from our ancestor. So Dark Background helps us to see the font colour clearly in the editor. Also, the different colour for the different element is easily recognizable in the dark theme. It makes code easily readable because of contrast.

3. Save Energy

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This point doesn't sound like an obvious reason but a dark theme help to save energy. It might be not a lot of energy but still, if you are working on the laptop for a long session it can be helpful. Also if most people use dark theme it will result in a large quantity of energy being saved.

I would love to know your reason to use a dark theme. You can tell your favourite dark theme also. Thank You guys for reading this blog post.

Top comments (100)

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santtuhelea profile image
santtuhelea

Light attracts bugs. We don't like bugs, right?

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manishfoodtechs profile image
manish srivastava

One line answer.

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futureistaken profile image
R Z

It's not bugs, it's features!

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Nice one bro 🤣🤣

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braydentw profile image
Brayden W ⚡️

Amen 😂😂

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mzaini30 profile image
Zen

😂😂😂😂

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sebring profile image
J. G. Sebring

I've never fallen for dark mode but this make me consider a switch =)

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yep, you should give a try ♥️

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sebring profile image
J. G. Sebring

Oh, I've tried it several times. If coding at night I think it's ok but for daily programming I find it makes the other screens appears so bright. I rather have a light mode with low brightness on the screen.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yep, adjusting according to light is good practice.

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hnrq profile image
Henrique Ramos

Case closed! lol

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rootleet profile image
Uyin Solomon

Correct!!

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jlonetree profile image
jlonetree

This is great 😂

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma • Edited

We can't afford to have bug in our house😂😂😂

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samarthsaxena profile image
Samarth Saxena

hilarious 😂

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

better contrast, easier for the eyes 😉

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dbarwikowski profile image
Daniel Barwikowski

I saw an article that says the opposite.
Let me find it

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dbarwikowski profile image
Daniel Barwikowski

ux.stackexchange.com/questions/532...

However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background.

People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Might be it's hard for white colour but other colours on black are easily readable. On white, we have a lot of trouble to read bright colour while on black we can easily read the bright colour without any trouble. IDE is made of multiple colours with each element is different, so dark is very suitable is such a situation.

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skyjur profile image
Ski • Edited

Depends on color palette. I can't agree that colored code is any less readable on white if the right shades that is dark enough is chosen.

You can also chose shades that are hard to read on black.

Not that this is in any way scientific but:
#ffe0ff on #fff - I can still read
#002000 on #000 - can't read at all, can't tell which color it is

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yep Bro, Everything at last comes to personal preferences and yes there are colours which you can't read clearly on dark but same goes for white theme IDE too.

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ytjchan profile image
ytjchan

My astigmatic eyes approves this.

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dbarwikowski profile image
Daniel Barwikowski

Turns out that it depends.
You should try it and see if you can keep the same reading speed and how fast your eyes get tired.

While dark theme looks kinda Pro then it doesn't change code quality.
Think about what is good for you :)

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madza profile image
Madza

Yeah, it comes down to individual preference anyways 😉

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yesss, it's always a personal preference.

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nooballday profile image
Achmad Naufal Syafiq

I used to use dark mode on everything cause my eyes hurt when using light mode, but lately I got fatigue really easily and changed my dark mode behavior to light mode, now I can code longer without hurting my eyes, weird huh.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Same here bro, I am using dark mode on almost all my devices.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yes that's why I love dark theme

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faridsa profile image
farid

I'm using dark theme everywhere not only in code IDE, because after over 30 years of computer use, I found dark screen so much pleasant for my eyes. I don't agree that light is smooth because I feel so much light from screen to my eyes in that way.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

I also started to maximize the use of dark theme whenever I am looking at the screen.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Thats good for your eyes

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mosecoza profile image
Bonginkosi Lukhele

I have the problems with light to my eyes but, I have not noticed it reduced with dark mode

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yess, Dark Theme helps eye.

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supportic profile image
Supportic

I use Light-Theme on daytime because it's easier for the eyes in a bright environment and keeps the focus.
And on nighttime it switches to dark-mode by using a VSCode extension.
You can set when exactly it should switch and it can calculate when the sun goes down in your region. You can also add or subtract e.g. 30min from that time.
marketplace.visualstudio.com/items...

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luscala profile image
Luca Scala

I used light themes for years. Then I suddenly switched to dark ones, because all my colleagues where using them. I found out a better experience, but when the sun shines in the room I think the light themes will perform better.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yes, light play important role in choosing theme in low light dark themes are best and bright light light themes are best.

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kurisutofu profile image
kurisutofu • Edited

I didn't really like dark themes ... I always used the light "normal" theme or modified it to be more grayish.
Then, most of the development tools went the dark mode route by default and I felt it was too much trouble to change all of them so I stuck with it.
Now, I finally understand it was better all along and it was just that I was not used to it. I should have forced myself to use it years ago.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

I hope now you Can adapt to dark theme era.

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kurisutofu profile image
kurisutofu

I like it now and I think I was wrong to be so reluctant before :D

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zilti_500 profile image
Daniel Ziltener

Soothing to the eye... that depends. A light background can be just as good. Spacemacs e.g. has a very nice light theme. I tend to use the light one during the day, and switch to the dark one in the evening.

No idea where you got that "more concentration" thing for, source please?

The energy saving point is a myth, unless you have an OLED screen, and even then the only way it saves energy is if you have the background set to completely black. And hardly any dark theme does that.

So, yea...

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

You have a point bro.

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cskinner74 profile image
Cody Skinner

Definitely easier on the eyes. I typically use blue-light blocking glasses when I'm working, but I love how relaxing dark themes are as opposed to being blasted with bright colors.

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surajondev profile image
Suraj Vishwakarma

Yep, dark theme are blessings for our eyes.

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bimlas profile image
bimlas

I would like the dark theme, but I have to switch between the dark IDE and the light background websites and that ruins my eyes. The solution would be to switch the desktop to completely dark mode (via xfce4-night-mode, customized .vimrc to toggle background at night, etc.) and also view the websites in night mode, but I think that would be more work than advantage.

I’ve tried to switch to dark mode several times because I want to try it, but I’ve never been really successful. What technical solutions are there?

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Suraj Vishwakarma • Edited

I use an extension called Dark Mode in my chrome website to toggle between dark and light mode. You can give a try.

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crtl profile image
crtl

I first thought dark theme is this gamer kiddy thing to look more like RGB style but in the end when you sit in front of your screen for 8+ hours multiple days dark theme was way easier on my eyes and I stayed with it.

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Suraj Vishwakarma

I also started using dark theme across all my devices to save my eyes.

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