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Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

practicaltypography.com

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Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#161

Post by tedunangst »

jeroenhd wrote: post #150
_V_ wrote: post #69

A page that does not load any content with disabled JavaScript: hell no I mean am I the only one that is browsing with completely disabled JS by default? :-D More and more sites don't load anything withnout a JS and I'm not talking about advanced apps like Microsoft Office online...

Even worse, the content is right there in the HTML. If you hit the reader mode button, it renders just fine without executing any code. I wonder why you would self sabotage your website like that.

The author has some strong opinions on the appearance of text and doesn't want anything displayed until all fonts and styles are loaded.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#162

Post by lucumo »

xupybd wrote: post #96
teo_zero wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone still using monospaced fonts in their editors? The question is aren't you?

I tried coding in a variable font. It was horrible. I couldn't read the code. I was shocked at how much my brain made use of the spacing to parse code.

Yes, same.

It's weird in a way, because there isn't all that much alignment going on in my code[1]. There's indentation, but that still works with a proportional font. And yet, it still looks wrong and hard to read. I can't really figure out why.

[1] I know some people align assignments in multiple lines, or comments at the end of the line, or similar things. I've been working under code style directives that prohibited those because lines changed more often because of whitespace than because of content. Since my work requires me not to do that, I don't have the habit at home either.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#163

Post by nick__m »

Is there a way to add programming ligatures to an existing font, similar to how Nerd Font patches existing fonts to add useful terminal glyphs like the Powerline symbols¹? I would love to have a ligatured version of that font https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font

1) the last sentence of the article implies that the author of the article abhor them as much as programming ligatures. I don't understand why but preference in taste, color, esthetic are not objective, nor absolute, so I am not the one to judge him.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#164

Post by MadcapJake »

hakre wrote: post #141
xupybd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't it still be mono space if the ligatures take up the same space as their components?

I think that is a stylistic decision to make it appear as if, but again, this ain't monospace any longer. In monospace one letter/symbol (printable character) has constant width. The ligature is one letter/symbol. so while the stylistic decision retains the monospace style of the replaced symbols, the ligature itself is double (or triple) sized compared with other symbols. IIRC this is commonly called "monospaced lig…

Fixed width is what monospace is intended for and ligatures maintain that feature. Nobody would use them if they caused code typesetting issues.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#165

Post by hackan »

I couldn't agree more! The first time I was faced w/ FiraCode, I was like "WTF is this!?". I tried using it, and lost my mind on the way... Well, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was really uncomfortable... For me, its Mononoki all the way, or JetBrainsMono is not bad, too.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#166

Post by toastal »

s-lambert wrote: post #137
throwawaymaths wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not all your coworkers will have that especially if you're not a place that does pairing all the time but just as one-offs.

You could alternatively use VSCode Live Share which is pretty similar.

This isn’t a viable option because a) it forces a specific editor on users and b) it’s buying into Microsoft’s proprietary ecosystem (tracking, plugins, etc.).

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#167

Post by kps »

gibspaulding wrote: post #135

This reminds me of a struggle I've run into lately. Can anyone recommend a convenient way to identify an individual Unicode character or string of characters? Ideally I'd like to be able to e.g. highlight one of these weird ligatures, or a whitespace that I want to identify, or an emoji my font doesn't support and select something like "identity this character" from the context menu to see what symbol or series of sy…

A context menu operation will be platform-specific, and I don't think you mentioned your platform(s). On MacOS, I used to use https://earthlingsoft.net/UnicodeChecker/ (which also does HTML entities).

If you're OK with a command line tool, I just finished updating and finally publishing a Python script I wrote for that purpose around 15 years ago: https://pypi.org/project/unicode-name-inquiry/ Lots of options, but default usage is, for example:

    $ uni ≥
    ≥ U+2265 GREATER-THAN OR EQUAL TO
(It doesn't currently do the string-of-symbols case, because it tries to interpret strings as some other character identifier, e.g. `uni tilde` or `uni 8805`, but that sounds like a reasonable option to add.)

Typically, people just search for the character on the web and land on one of the many ‘monetized code charts’.

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#168

Post by 1attice »

tptacek wrote: post #117
TonyStr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later, in the "by the way" section after the article. After an article that in no way suggests it's talking about printed and shared code exclusively. After paragraphs such as this > Bottom line: this isn’t a matter of taste. In programming code, every character in the file has a special semantic role to play. Therefore, any kind of “prettifying” that makes one character look like another—including ligatures—leads to…

It is an attack on using ligatures in code. It's not hiding that. That's the point of the article.

It's not an "attack". It's an argument against. "Attack" implies some sort of animus directed against the recipient; e.g. an attack on unhoused people, etc. An attack implies violence.

An argument, even one with strong language, can be about whether or not a tool is fit-for-purpose. This is allowed. This is discourse.

Right now, politically, a lot of arguments are actually attacks (on specific groups of people) in disguise, and I sympathize with your confusion. But arguments do exist. Not every argument is an attack.

I can't link to this book often enough: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29363252-conflict-is-not...

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#169

Post by tremon »

tedunangst wrote: post #161
jeroenhd wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, the content is right there in the HTML. If you hit the reader mode button, it renders just fine without executing any code. I wonder why you would self sabotage your website like that.

The author has some strong opinions on the appearance of text and doesn't want anything displayed until all fonts and styles are loaded.

Perhaps they should publish an already-typeset image or PDF, not an html webpage, then?

Re: Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)

#170

Post by hakre »

MadcapJake wrote: post #164
hakre wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is a stylistic decision to make it appear as if, but again, this ain't monospace any longer. In monospace one letter/symbol (printable character) has constant width. The ligature is one letter/symbol. so while the stylistic decision retains the monospace style of the replaced symbols, the ligature itself is double (or triple) sized compared with other symbols. IIRC this is commonly called "monospaced lig…

Fixed width is what monospace is intended for and ligatures maintain that feature. Nobody would use them if they caused code typesetting issues.

Whether that is considered an issue or not is merely in the eye of the beholder.

E.g. a compacting ligature for "www" seems to be welcome in some typefaces for coding. But again, only to stress the reminder: It ain't monospace any longer.

We do still may prefer for the typesetting pleasantry that it still is styled as monospace (or fixed width). but those ligatures aren't fixed width any longer as with the letter A, that's all.

This is the difference between what it looks like (two or three glyphs) and what it is (a single glyph). So we break monospace to keep it appearing fixed-width even with the ligatures.

Would be interesting if there is more typesetting theory about the width of ligatures in a monospace font.

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