Programming Fonts – Test Drive • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#111

Post by darkcha0s » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

Jerry2 wrote: post #16

gnulinux wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Not to sound cheap, but it really seems unnecessary to me to spend 60 Eur for a font, when I already have really good fonts like Inconsolata in my reach for free. Is font really that important, do you think? This is an honest question, please don't think I'm sarcastic.

That's an average price of a AAA game, right? And what kind of utility do you get from that? Just did a quick check... I bought it in Sept of 2012, 2323 days ago. $70 / (2323 day * 6 hrs/day) = $0.005/hr Did I get my money's worth (and mind you, I paid less than that.. I'm just going by today's prices)? I think I did. It all depends on how you value things.

Except that most expensive AAA games don't have free counterparts...

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#112

Post by mbrock » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #9

Jerry2 wrote: post #4

One of my favorites is PragmataPro [0] (with powerline glyphs) and I'm sad it's not there. I guess they can't use proprietary fonts. PragmataPro was so weird when I started using it but it has grown on me and now I have a hard time switching to a terminal that uses something else. In any case, if you're like me and you look at the terminal screen for hours on end every single day, find some font that won't tire your…

Huh. Not to sound cheap, but it really seems unnecessary to me to spend 60 Eur for a font, when I already have really good fonts like Inconsolata in my reach for free. Is font really that important, do you think? This is an honest question, please don't think I'm sarcastic.

Inconsolata doesn’t even have italics!

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#113

Post by LocalH » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

darkcha0s wrote: post #111

Jerry2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an average price of a AAA game, right? And what kind of utility do you get from that? Just did a quick check... I bought it in Sept of 2012, 2323 days ago. $70 / (2323 day * 6 hrs/day) = $0.005/hr Did I get my money's worth (and mind you, I paid less than that.. I'm just going by today's prices)? I think I did. It all depends on how you value things.

Except that most expensive AAA games don't have free counterparts...

Not all fonts have free counterparts. “Serif” and “sans serif” don’t always mean fungible.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#114

Post by rypskar » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

I am fascinated of how important font is for some, I tend to stick with the default font and not think about it. The only time I have really noticed a font is libre font (or what its name was) after installing LibreOffice, I did uninstall LibreOffice and bought MS Office instead because of that font

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#115

Post by augustk » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:29 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #69

valtism wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to know how you started using proportional fonts for coding. All of the tooling for writing code defaults to monospace, so what started you coding in a different style?

One of the early proponents of using proportional fonts for code was Bjarne Stroustroup - his "The C++ Programming Language" books all do that, and he briefly explains it in the intro as being more readable, and urges the readers to give it a go. I wasn't convinced, personally, but the idea was already around then.

Using a proportional font is also common (recommended) when programming in Bertrand Meyer's Eiffel or Niklaus Wirth's Oberon.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#116

Post by clappski » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:29 AM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #29

My favourite for a few years now is a commercial font, Triplicate. It’s a true serif monospace font; every other monospace font I’ve encountered that is labelled “serif” is actually a slab serif. It has a proper italic face as well, which is a less rare, but it’s a functional italic face rather than ornamental. It comes with some interesting variants, most notably Poly which is not fully monospaced, adjusting the wid…

That website is possibly the most beautiful and ergonomic website I've ever used.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#117

Post by betimsl » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:32 AM UTC

I use IBM Plex. You should add it to the list, I think it's free.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#118

Post by fmeyer » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:39 AM UTC

rypskar wrote: post #114

I am fascinated of how important font is for some, I tend to stick with the default font and not think about it. The only time I have really noticed a font is libre font (or what its name was) after installing LibreOffice, I did uninstall LibreOffice and bought MS Office instead because of that font

Some fonts can be very annoying for those with astigmatism — especially when using contact lenses instead of glasses since they aren't always matching your prescription.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#119

Post by m45t3r » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #110

klageveen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I feature on the blog, but you'll notice the right-hand side of app.programmingfonts.org is interactive. That's kinda hard to do with static images ;)

Would it violate the ToS to create a simple sprite sheet out of a proprietary fixed-width font?

I don't think the author needs to go to such lengths just to support some proprietary fonts, specially considering that there are great free and open options.

Re: Programming Fonts – Test Drive

#120

Post by simias » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:46 AM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #61

I've been using DejaVu Sans Mono for quite some time. It's a nice font. It used to be the default monospace font in KDE, until they switched to Noto Mono. Autohinting setting for fontconfig makes it look better for me: DejaVu Sans Mono true

I'm in the same boat, every time one of these threads pop up I try a few different fonts recommended here but I always end up going back to DejaVu. It think it looks pretty good, it has good Unicode coverage, it's supported out of the box on most distros...

It's weird because I can be pretty snobbish and opinionated with a lot of programming-related stuff (I use a very expensive keyboard, a large 4k screen, a heavily customized editor and window manager etc...) but when it comes to fonts I really have a hard time finding a real improvement with some of the very expensive fonts people are recommending in this thread compared to good old DevaVu.

I would be very interested to read an article that would explain in details what makes certain fonts better or worse than others, especially for programming.