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Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures

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Re: Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures

#5

Post by nkrisc »

draw_down wrote: post #2

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

Well, depending on your audience I think it would be a step backward for static display of code since in some cases it isn't clear what to actually type. Fine for experienced audiences but really frustrating for anyone learning.

For example, the 'x' in the hex value. Is it a regular 'x' or another character? How about those fat arrows? How are those typed?

Re: Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures

#6

Post by draw_down »

nkrisc wrote: post #5
draw_down wrote: post #2

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

Well, depending on your audience I think it would be a step backward for static display of code since in some cases it isn't clear what to actually type. Fine for experienced audiences but really frustrating for anyone learning. For example, the 'x' in the hex value. Is it a regular 'x' or another character? How about those fat arrows? How are those typed?

Good point. Copying and pasting should still work ok, but it would be confusing to read for someone who didn't recognize the ligature glyphs.

Re: Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures

#7

Post by kej »

draw_down wrote: post #2

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

In my experience using Fira Code with VS, VS Code, and Konsole, the monospacing isn't a problem. The ligatures are designed so that they fill up the same width as the original characters.

My opinion might be biased by a heavy math background, but I like that e.g. "less than or equal" now looks the same as the way I write it on paper, and I don't find myself spending any time thinking about what that symbol means.

I'll concede that it totally messes up command line help text in the console, though. You get lots of stuff like --parameter= turned into —parameter≤value> but it hasn't annoyed me enough to switch back yet.

Re: Monospaced Programming Fonts with Ligatures

#9

Post by wereHamster »

nkrisc wrote: post #5
draw_down wrote: post #2

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

Well, depending on your audience I think it would be a step backward for static display of code since in some cases it isn't clear what to actually type. Fine for experienced audiences but really frustrating for anyone learning. For example, the 'x' in the hex value. Is it a regular 'x' or another character? How about those fat arrows? How are those typed?

If you don't use one of those fonts that support ligatures, you'll see the plain ascii characters. You shouldn't use these fonts if you don't know what kinds of ligatures it supports or how it converts plain ascii characters into a higher form.
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