Yellow
Turns out that the contrast of black text on yellow background is much sharper and more agreeable to the human eye than that of black text on pure white, which tends to be much harsher and more irritating. Works for me, at least.
I’ve long used a very unsaturated shade of yellow (kind of like parchment) as the background color in BBEdit.
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Actually, ir has to do with the physiology of the human eye. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's because when sunlight hits the atmosphere it scatters more yellow light than any other wavelength. Thus we have more cones in our eye tuned to yellow light than for the other colors.
My own take on yellow is in the URL above...
I use black-ink pens since 3rd grade, and try to use as much as possible yellow paper since high-school. It was a natural choice, just feel more comfortable in this combination. It's very good for long hours studying / writing.
This is a well known thing (but I don't know if it is a fact). I remember one of my university teachers telling a story, that evolution made men see yellow-black as the highest contrast. The reason is, a lot of nasty things come in this combination - tigers, wasps, snakes...