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Victor Mono Typeface

rubjo.github.io

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Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#101

Post by jug »

Due to the garguantuan font size on the page, I couldn't resize the page down to my typical programming font size. It was larger than that even at 30% zoom level and that's the minimum on Firefox.

It's pointless to have a demo if I can't check how the font would look like on a desktop computer.

Edit: Oh, now I get it. It's upscaled the larger the browser window size is. I understand this from an adaptive design perspective but I don't think it's optimal in this case. It becomes huge if you sit with a 27" monitor, which is a rather normal monitor size for programming.

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#102

Post by romwell »

rubjo wrote: post #69
zare_st wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you made it explicitly for programming purposes. I am not a poll house or a public opinion evaluator. But handwritten cursive and programming I wouldn't put in a same sentence. The ligatures and the height you choose really don't go well with a lot of popular programming languages. I'm not sure what aspect of programming do you believe is "inhumane" so you have desire to introduce "humanity" through design choic…

Heh well actually I made the font for my own use. Some others have liked it, others have critized features of it, like the italics and the ligatures. (Features one can easily disable in most sane editors, I might add). I’ve been using it daily ever since I made it, and I like to believe it makes me effective and happy. No one should obviously pick a font which is hard to read for them of slows them down. This font do…

>Heh well actually I made the font for my own use.

Perhaps you should change the banner on the github page to reflect that. Currently, it says "the best programming font"; whereas your comment implies it is merely "the best font for rubjo".

Same goes for your Patreon page. When you take other people's money, you say:

>It means a lot to me that you choose to support me this way. With your contribution, I can cover some of the costs for the software and the time used designing the font. Issues / feature requests you might have will be prioritised when possible.

Obviously, it should say (quoting your comments here):

>Thanks for trying the font. In the end, I guess I don't really care. Issues / feature requests you might have... heh well actually I made the font for my own use. :D You should probably pick a font where legibility has been the sole focus.

>To me, the font is absolutely super-legible. If this font is hard to read for you or slows you down, yes, you should probably pick Dyslexia fonts.

Finally, saying that people who don't find your font legible should probably use fonts specifically designed for people with Dyslexia is just... ugh.

Especially coming from someone who writes phrases like these:

- font which is hard to read for them of slows them down

- others have critized features of it

In the end, it's not about the font. It's about how you respond to people who "critize" your work.

And "works for me, have you considered you're dyslexic?" is not a great response. You can do better, and I hope you will.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334154

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334764

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#103

Post by aeturnum »

romwell wrote: post #86
rubjo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typeface designer here. Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it. I guess the point is that it wasn’t first and foremost designed to follow as many font design principles as possible. If that’s what’s important to you, pick a font that follows as many of these principles as possible. :D In the end, I guess I don’t really care whether I use 157ms to parse a sentence instead of 158 - although to…

Feels like your response could be abbreviated for clarity: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it [...] In the end, I guess I don’t really care

It's a shame this is all you got from the response because I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting:

>Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts. You're right that it doesn't follow all of the guidelines to maximize readability! There are other fonts that do that but mine does not. That's not what I'm interested in and it doesn't bother me - I find it to be perfectly readable.

I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is understanding that guidelines are always about maximizing certain qualities of something and that it's generally ok to choose not to focus on those things. Unless your customers are a captive population of some sort, generally we can all make whatever thing we want and let people who like it pick it up.

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#104

Post by silon42 »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #22

Sorry, ligatures are not for me. I don't get it. Why would you ever want symbols to collapse like that in a functional monospace font? Just looks like a bunch of funky unicode characters peppered throughout my source. And my caret can travel _inside_ one of these special marks? No thanks.

Same here... Also, I had to enable web page fonts to actually see the horror :)

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#106

Post by romwell »

caslon wrote: post #97
romwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels like your response could be abbreviated for clarity: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it [...] In the end, I guess I don’t really care

What's wrong with that? A person isn't obligated to have an open source maintainer care about their opinions on where their project should go, even if it can be helpful for them to consider objections. Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad."

>What's wrong with that?

Going out of one's way to tell to a person that wasn't talking to you in the first place to say that you don't care about what they said.

>Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad."

You may notice that the criticism is written in several well-structured and reasoned paragraphs, and not that one line. Perhaps your summary doesn't reflect what was said.

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#107

Post by rntz »

crazygringo wrote: post #46
doubloon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM had a cursive font for typewriters

Yup, IBM Selectric Scribe (towards the bottom of the page): http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-44934.html It was a bit of a "novelty" font for typewriters. Almost like the Comic Sans of its day. It wasn't meant to be used as italics, it was for typing a fun invitation or more "personal" letter or something like that. I can't find any information on it specifically though, whether it was the first. It wouldn't surprise me i…

I think that's actually IBM Selectric Script, not Scribe (the images are labelled at the bottom not the top). https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/10922/script-ibm finds two uses of it.

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#108

Post by nrabulinski »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #51
chalsprhebaodu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that it’s not indecipherable or clownish and perhaps you are a part of a group that just doesn’t get it?

Not OP, but that’s my conclusion. I also don’t like programming font ligatures, but I personally find it annoying when people who share my opinion feel the need to point it out in a discussion of fonts clearly designed for people who don’t share my opinion. It’s highly subjective and the prevalence of these ligatures has never been a huge burden for me, because fonts without them are rather prevalent as well, as are…

And you can use the font with ligatures disabled! Almost as if having ligatures was a preference that doesn’t influence those who don’t want them yet may convince someone who does to try out font X :)

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#109

Post by romwell »

aeturnum wrote: post #103
romwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels like your response could be abbreviated for clarity: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it [...] In the end, I guess I don’t really care

It's a shame this is all you got from the response because I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting: > Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts. You're right that it doesn't follow all of the guidelines to maximize readability! There are other fonts that do that but mine does not. That's not what I'm interested in and it doesn't bother me - I find it to be perfectly readable. I think an…

>I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting

Your rewriting of the comment says exactly the same thing it did before. My assessment of it remains the same.

I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is realizing that it's better to say nothing at all than to write "it works for me, use something else if you don't like it" in response to criticism of work that you:

1. Publish online for public use;

2. Describe as "the best font for programming";

3. Set up a Patreon page to collect money for.

Note that the criticism was not addressed to the designer in the first place. The designer went out of their way to find and dismiss criticism with a non-informative "I guess I just don't care".

The critic explained why they strongly feel that e.g. curisve italics aren't a good feature for a programming font (moreso described as "the best" one). The designer added no context or insight into why they think differently other than "I don't care", which is, frankly, offputing.

It is also disingenuous to sum up the criticism as "does not follow all guidelines for readability". The criticism wasn't about following guidelines; it was about the font being hard to read.

Imagine a teacher telling a student their handwriting isn't legible, and the student responding with "I guess I don't care, following all the guidelines wasn't the goal in producing this work, and I myself can read this perfectly fine". We are not that far from this scenario here.

Re: Victor Mono Typeface

#110

Post by ssgodderidge »

gnarlouse wrote: post #105

Fonts have become such a fetish, it's weird.

I mean, why do we wear the clothes we do? Why not other clothes? Why do we choose the art we collect? Why do some people care about art, and some don't? Why do we follow the sports? Why do some people follow football while others care about cricket?

Different people care about different things. Why should we judge what people care about?

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