It seems many editors, particularly on Windows machines, make your editor look like a circus. I ran my code through an editor once and counted seven different colors including hot pink. Too often, code words are highlighted because they can but it serves no purpose.
I can see where highlighting of certain significant keywords can be helpful, but I'm not entirely convinced of this either. I frequently find highlighting just grabbing my attention while scanning and distracting me.
In typography, highlighting is used just for that. To grab your attention so you don't miss something. Do you want to do that while reading through the logic of your code? I always tell myself I'm going to experiment with this but haven't yet. I might like highlighting when I'm searching for a keyword but not otherwise.
I think some like colored highlighting because it seems to make the page more attractive to look at. I also think this is only a temporary effect which quickly wears off and, again, only causes distraction and confusion.
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