MonoLisa – A font designed for developers • Hacker News Board

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#141

Post by jay_kyburz » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

anuragsoni wrote: post #109

jay_kyburz wrote: post #84

There is a font on my KDE desktop called just "Monospace" and its a great font. I can't find a font file called Monospace. Does anybody know what the font is? I would love to have it on my windows machine.

Different distributions pick different defaults for `Monospace`. If you are using KDE on ubuntu, `Monospace` might be pointing to `Ubuntu Mono`. On other linux distros if they are sticking to KDE defaults, then Monospace will point to Hack [1] [1] https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

I'm on Kubuntu, Its not Ubunto Mono and I'm 99% sure its not Hack. You can select both those options and both look quite different.

I wish I was at home so I could post a screenshot.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#142

Post by eps » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

bostonsre wrote: post #137

zestyping wrote: post #125

Please stop it with the "coding ligatures" already. They are not helpful and only serve to obscure the code being written. This has got to be one of my least favourite trends in programming aesthetics these days. For a font claiming to "follow function" to devote so much effort to sacrificing function for the _vogue du jour_ is especially rich.

Lucky for you, you can disable ligatures or not use a font that you don't like.

You are missing the point.

Presence of ligatures in a "font designed for developers" is neither a plus nor a selling point. It is a pointless embellishment that shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages. So them parading ligatures as something desirable only serves to detract from the rest of the font design and to nick their credibility as coding font designers.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#143

Post by BitwiseFool » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #124

rmbyrro wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess maybe because developers are the target audience and they happen to make a lot of money?

But then developers also know how to use devtools in their browser.

Does DRM exist for typefaces?

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#144

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:32 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #142

bostonsre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for you, you can disable ligatures or not use a font that you don't like.

You are missing the point. Presence of ligatures in a "font designed for developers" is neither a plus nor a selling point. It is a pointless embellishment that shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages. So them parading ligatures as something desirable only serves to detract from the rest of the font design and to nick their credibility as coding font designers.

For what it's worth I also have ligatures disabled but I do think it's fair for fonts to include them, particularly because it makes the fonts more versatile in settings where you want them.

In particular when doing presentations having fonts that are capable of producing ligatures in monospace contexts is quite useful.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#145

Post by epolanski » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:34 PM UTC

zestyping wrote: post #125

Please stop it with the "coding ligatures" already. They are not helpful and only serve to obscure the code being written. This has got to be one of my least favourite trends in programming aesthetics these days. For a font claiming to "follow function" to devote so much effort to sacrificing function for the _vogue du jour_ is especially rich.

You can simply disable them.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#146

Post by michaelcampbell » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

zestyping wrote: post #125

Please stop it with the "coding ligatures" already. They are not helpful and only serve to obscure the code being written. This has got to be one of my least favourite trends in programming aesthetics these days. For a font claiming to "follow function" to devote so much effort to sacrificing function for the _vogue du jour_ is especially rich.

I mean ultimately, all characters are "ligatures", in the sense they are arbitrary squiggles to which we apply meaning.

You seem to have done it well enough with at least 64 of them; maybe closer to 70 since you use _, ., , and ".

Don't let a few more ruin your day. A few more, I might add, that you don't even have to use.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#147

Post by hunterb123 » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #142

bostonsre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for you, you can disable ligatures or not use a font that you don't like.

You are missing the point. Presence of ligatures in a "font designed for developers" is neither a plus nor a selling point. It is a pointless embellishment that shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages. So them parading ligatures as something desirable only serves to detract from the rest of the font design and to nick their credibility as coding font designers.

> It is a pointless embellishment

That's like your opinion man.

> So them parading ligatures as something desirable

Others desire them, so they include them. I thank that.

> shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages

Nonsense, just an empty insult. I don't think you grok ligatures.

> only serves to detract from the rest of the font design

Your opinion, I believe it enhances the font design.

> to nick their credibility as coding font designers

Another empty insult. Including a feature that people like doesn't hurt their credibility.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#148

Post by michaelcampbell » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:37 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #142

bostonsre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for you, you can disable ligatures or not use a font that you don't like.

You are missing the point. Presence of ligatures in a "font designed for developers" is neither a plus nor a selling point. It is a pointless embellishment that shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages. So them parading ligatures as something desirable only serves to detract from the rest of the font design and to nick their credibility as coding font designers.

> fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages.

Hogwash. They provided all the characters (which ligatures are also, but you seem bizarrely "against" but "for" the ASCII ones), and ligature-less versions as well. So they grok it at least that far.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#149

Post by ctvo » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

eps wrote: post #142

bostonsre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for you, you can disable ligatures or not use a font that you don't like.

You are missing the point. Presence of ligatures in a "font designed for developers" is neither a plus nor a selling point. It is a pointless embellishment that shows that fonts' authors don't grok the character-oriented nature of computer languages. So them parading ligatures as something desirable only serves to detract from the rest of the font design and to nick their credibility as coding font designers.

I would concede your point if these folks were trying to sell you a used car.

You don't need to take their word or rely on their credibility for anything. There's a demo right there of the font for you to decide if it's for you or not.

Re: MonoLisa – A font designed for developers

#150

Post by michaelcampbell » Mon, Feb 14, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

kbd wrote: post #24

Unfortunately not available to compare on https://www.programmingfonts.org/ While I'm here: Victor Mono has been my programming font of choice for a while now: https://rubjo.github.io/victor-mono/ Oh, look at that, the Victor Mono homepage has a font comparison slider that allows you to compare it to MonoLisa! MonoLisa advertises that it's wider than other monospace fonts, and you can really see that in the compariso…

Victor mono is definitely not my thing, but thanks for pointing it out. I am quite fickle with typefaces so maybe one day this one will be the one I use for a few months.