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Dev Fonts

devfonts.gafi.dev

231–240 of 342 posts

Re: Dev Fonts

#231

Am I the only one who uses a proportional font for coding? I find it more readable for the same reason it's more readable in books and other printed media.

I did use proportional fonts with REBOL, Ruby, CoffeeScript and JavaScript. Tried it with tab-indented Clojure code too.

However, 1-2 space indented code becomes just too ambiguous when rendered with proportional fonts, because the spaces are way too thin. I wish editors would render em or en-sized spaces instead, at least for the line-leading spaces. That way we would get the same indentation as intended with monospaced fonts, but still save horizontal space, while maintaining readability...

Re: Dev Fonts

#232
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess the idea is that the ligatures represent the concepts that the combination of symbols are trying to represent. Also it looks pretty If you're staring a text editor for 8+ hours a day, it is important what you are staring at is pleasing to you.

I'll be honest, I've never grasped the perspective that sees typography as a meaningful aesthetic property of code. I mean, when I look at code, I'm not appreciating it as visual art, I'm reading it. Usually the point at which that stops happening is the point at which my brain is tired enough that it's time to go do something else for a little while and recover. So, as long as the font I'm using doesn't actively imp…

If you're working on code for most of the day, you will absolutely be making decisions that enhance your experience.

Could be an editor, monitor, chair, etc. It might not seem like some of those little things matter -- if I can sit in the chair, it works for me! -- but they do to some and typography is one of those things.

I don't understand folks who don't understand this. I get it if you don't personally care about typography but every developer is making QOL decisions.

Re: Dev Fonts

#233
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ≠ is easier to understand than != I respectfully disagree with this claim. It's conventional code notation that != is a Boolean test for (in)equality; that convention doesn't apply to ≠, which is overloaded in mathematics.

It's C notation. Other languages use other notations like ~= or /= or . And any conceptual overloading of ≠ is a tiny fraction of the problem with = (it's too bad ASCII'67 dropped the ASCII'63 ← in favor of _).

The != notation has become pretty standard in most common programming languages. What exceptions are there in the top 20 development languages? VBA?

But, taking your point, a ligature ≠ would be overloaded in representing != and ~= and /= and and becomes potentially very risky.

Re: Dev Fonts

#234
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haskell has a language extension that does the same thing [1]. Now all you need is a keyboard with good unicode coverage [2]. [1] https://wiki.haskell.org/Unicode-symbols [2] https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EKfCI8QuAaM/S7L-baZ-ZVI/AAAAAAAAD...

It's unfortunate that keyboard input is an afterthought for most systems. OS X is probably the best overall, with easy installation (with one gotcha for development) and SIL Ukelele being a decent editor. XKB is tolerable, overcomplicated in some ways and limited in others (really needing a layout to be paired with an .XCompose), but Linux Desktops™ make it painful to configure any layout that doesn't ship with their…

I use a great little Windows program called WinCompose[1]. It turns Alt Gr on my keyboard into a “compose” key, so I can press that followed by a short sequence of other keys to quickly type numerous common symbols. As a result, I can type “ or † or ≤ almost as easily as I can type " or * or [1] http://wincompose.info/

Re: Dev Fonts

#235
post #200

Iosevka is highly active and highly customizable set that I've been sticking with after a dozen terminal fonts switching. Every time I try a new font now, I go back to Iosevka. The narrow width makes it stand out significantly from the others and it's much easier to use when having multiple columns open on the screen. I highly recommend it.

It is also my favourite. It's just narrow enough for using with multiple columns, but not too narrow that it affects legibility for me, and it's event customizable, for my nitpicky preferences.

Re: Dev Fonts

#236
There's a certain style of programming font, I think due to narrow strokes and sharp curves that I at least find universally ugly and often hard to read. From this list Monoid, Iosveka, Anonymous Pro, and Share Tech Mono at least fall into that category. I think it's meant to be sort of a callback to bitmap fonts? I know the Linux console font (terminus) looks similar, but that's clearly due to technical limitations. Is there something wrong with my font rendering, or are there people actually liking this style? If you do like this style, what OS do you use? I'm wondering if there's a common trend where such fonts render better on macOS or something.

Re: Dev Fonts

#237

Nice website but the problem is that it shows the fonts at 18px size when most people use their editors at 11 or 10px sizes. Many fonts look radically different at such small sizes.

I wonder if a survey would hold that to be true - I use my editor at 16 on Linux/18 on Mac. My browser zoom is also on to differing levels for different sites - I have HN at 160%.

Re: Dev Fonts

#238
post #4

Very nice! I tend to use tiny sized font and I don't see any option to change font size. I'm always surprised by the huge default font size in text editors and IDEs. So I ask: Is there such a "standard" dev font size every dev uses and no one complains?

So personally, I tend to size fonts so that I can fit two editor windows of 100-ish lines + editor fluff side by side. This usually lands in the 14-18 point range, though if coding on my work MBP directly I have to sacrifice having the file tree visible to get a comfortable font size.

I used to as a teenager coding on a 1366x768 laptop use a 8px font size, as that was the only way to get 2 editor panes side by side. I'm in my late 20s now, so not an old age issue, but would not describe such a font size as comfortable these days. Part of that is monitors today are higher DPI, and part of it is that I now sit reasonable ergonomic distances from my monitors.

Re: Dev Fonts

#239
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. A `==` is two characters long, while `===` is three characters long. Also, with the font I use (Fire Code) the `===` ligature has three lines, making it even easier to distinguish.

I just had a look at Fire Code. How do you distinguish -> with ligatures from → (an Unicode arrow)?

The Unicode arrow is most likely throwing an error in the linter or compiler and is underlined with a red line.

Re: Dev Fonts

#240

My favourite monospaced font is Triplicate https://practicaltypography.com/triplicate.html >: the only true serif monospace that I know of (though I have a vague feeling I found one other at some point). Every other serif monospace I know of is a slab serif. Triplicate’s variable stroke thickness is also exceedingly rare in monospaced fonts; almost everyone goes for uniform stroke thickness, as is customary with sans…

i can't find any pictures of triplicate with a dark background. could you share any? some hefty fonts (ie, go mono, courier) look so different when you change backgrounds that i am hesitant to buy without looking at a sample.

TIA

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