If that were really the only thin preventing you from using the website, you could have just written your own CSS or leveraged the dozen or so already available through Stylish
I don't think so, the sophomore in COMP 101 isn't that valuable to SO because they add no knowledge to the ecosystem, they'll come from Google, read the answer and leave. But the expert Java dev with 15 years of experience who posts on Usenet forums is someone who may have very specific preferences and will entrench themselves in a platform.
I'd assume these news also apply to the properties on stackexchange that have a lot of non-tech content. As for the rest they probably want them to create accounts, that'd be one way to do it.
It's beta, the average user isn't supposed to see it yet:
"We want to share it with our community, especially our power users, and gather feedback so we can improve, iterate, and expand Dark Mode in the future."
One of the beta is "System setting" which pulls the default from the browsers "prefers-color-scheme" value (which by default pulls it's value from the system scheme). When it's ready to roll out fully this seems to be the likely path they are planning.
... but it doesn’t work on mobile, where dark mode was first popularized and whose screens tend to look best in dark mode due to the prevalence of smaller OLED panels which make white on dark truly pop... kind of disappointing then.
The Chrome Extension "Dark Reader" has given me months of dark mode for hundreds of websites to include Stack Overflow. Given the long hours and late nights, it has been invaluable to both my productivity and eyesight.
It's interesting how the author argues that eyes can perceive dark-on-light more, but intuitively one would assume that light-on-dark is easier to discern (like bright lights in the night)
Ultimately the best option is probably a progressive change in colors through out the day.
I've been using Dark Reader for about a month or so now and though it's anecdotal it has really helped with my dry/irritated eyes.
I realize it could be other factors as well, but I notice that I can go longer without my dry eyes bugging we with it on then with normal bright pages.
I cannot comment on developers' preferences as a whole, but I personally have several large floaters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater) and using a display with a bright background makes them very noticeable and distracting. Which is why I use Dark Reader (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eimadpbcbfnmbkopoo...) for websites and dark themes in my OS/terminal/IDEs. It's not just an aesthetic choice.
I prefer consistency. The system setting, is the best here. If my system is dark, go dark, if light, go light. At night, dark is great, in a bright room, light wins. Shifting between the extremes is horrid.
So, when can we expect to see a dark mode here in our beloved HN?
(currently reading on an iPad, late at night, with night shift on to cut blue light and with minimum brightness to reduce eye strain)
While adverbs can come after an action verb (in this case, 'has' functions as an act of a possession), as a native English speaker and a former ESL instructor I have NEVER heard the phrase "has now" or any similar phrases such as, "he has finally a car". They both sound extremely awkward.
