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Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

> red means bad and green means good. This association is cross-cultural, probably universal, and probably as old as the hills

This is strongly and patently not true. Here in Japan the available taxi is in Red while the taken one is in Green, and there are many more similar examples. Admitedly it's mixed, because traffic lights are still red to stop and blue to cross. Wait blue? There was no distinction in Japan between green and blue back in the day and that still remains. Colors are very much culture-dependent, and saying otherwise is ingenuous at least and misleading at best.

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You have a point that colour perception is culturally modulated, but I'd argue that the original point still stands in the modern world (which is what's relevant to the discussion of syntax highlighting): the majority of people who look at code will sooner associate red with bad than with good, and this association has become self-sustaining (much like the widespread adoption of qwerty-like keyboards).

Your example of Japanese taxi signs using red to signal availability is an interesting but rare exception to the general rule across the industrialized world that red={warning, danger, no, stop, delete}, and green={safe, good, yes, go, maximize}. For this example, there are many counterexamples. After all, Japan uses red=stop, green-blue=go on all traffic lights, railways, shipping, and aviation, in accordance with international conventions.

Yes, colours are very much culture-dependent, but red=bad and green=good (or green-blue for cultures that don't distinguish these two colours) has been intentionally adopted across cultures for generations -- dating back to shipping and train signals, if not much earlier to verdant countrysides versus blood, fire, etc.

Humans have been trained by the evolution to spot red fruit on green background. This way red is "loud" and green is "quiet". It makes perfect sense then to announce free taxies in a loud voice then.

But you can turn this around if you consider "loud" = "ERROR; DANGER; STOP (found fruit?); NO" and "quiet" = "yes; safe; good; continue (no fruit; keep looking?)".

In Chinese stock market, Red means the stock is up and green means it’s down. If you have an iPhone, try setting the language to Chinese and open the Stocks app. Red has always been considered an auspicious color in Chinese culture. It’s the theme color of weddings and Chinese New Year.

And what colour means stop/error in China's traffic lights, rail networks, shipping lanes, and aircraft?

That is not exactly relevant.

In China it is understood that red color is used to indicate STOP because it has the greatest wavelength and is therefore more visible in inclement weather.

In addition, color code for traffic light is fixed by international convention and it’s not like China can choose whatever it wants.

My point is, culture has nothing to do with the choice of stop light color in China

> My point is, culture has nothing to do with the choice of stop light color in China

That's exactly my point as well. The article mentioned that the association between red and "bad" stuff (stop, error, etc.) is cross-cultural. Someone replied vehemently denying that, but the fact is that red={stop, error, bad, ...} is a long-standing international convention that does supersede regional cultural effects.

> In addition, color code for traffic light is fixed by international convention and it’s not like China can choose whatever it wants

China can choose whatever they want, but don't.

Many countries have not signed the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. For example China, Japan and the United States have not signed the convention.

Japan is a good example: "It is a near universal constant when driving: red means stop, and green means go. So fundamental is this dynamic that it is codified in international law under the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which has been ratified by 74 countries. Why, then, does Japan — not a signatory to the Convention —seem to buck the trend with its blue/green traffic signals?" https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japan-green-traffic-li...

I actually just tried this out- you need to change the region to China Mainland actually, not the language.

Entire countries like France do not use qwerty, and in Japan the taxi light is not an exception, rather it is fairly common. The traffic light IS the exception here, and it is definitedly not accepted that red=bad and green=good here! If anything, I'd say that red here represents the primary action.

Hence my mention of "qwerty-like." France's AZERTY is a variation on qwerty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#History).

In modern UX/UI, red is universally understood to mean delete, close, stop, error, and similar "bad" or destructive things. If you localize OS X to Japanese, does the "close window" button change from red to something else? If you localize GitHub to Japanese, does its irreversible repo deletion confirmation prompt appear in green? Is the "proceed to GitHub" button at https://github.co.jp/ green or red?

It's true in the places where they decided to use green for adding lines and red for removing them.

That said I don't think it matters. The benefit of not making removing lines look like a bad thing is definitely outweighed by the cost of not making it obvious which colour means which. Was olive for lines added? I can never remember...

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