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CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

codingfont.com

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Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#62
post #7

My coding font is comic-shanns-mono, here's how it looks: https://github.com/jesusmgg/comic-shanns-mono?tab=readme-ov-...

Comic Code Ligatures for me :D

Same. It has a double-storey a, which I prefer a lot.

Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#63

I got Source Code Pro. My daily driver is currently 0xProto, but I didn't see that in the game (admittedly I think it's kinda rarely used).

I got the same result. I usually use Monaspace by GitHub. Interestingly, they both use texture healing.

https://github.com/githubnext/monaspace/blob/main/docs/Textu...

Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#65

I enjoyed this, though my font preferences are pretty stable. It would be nice if it showed you 1st, 2nd, semi-finalist, quarter-finalist... It would also be nice to see progress of some kind, a few minutes in I was wondering if I was near completion or just getting started.

> t would also be nice to see progress of some kind

It's hidden behind the menu button on mobile.

Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#67

A few years ago I found comic mono and monofur for Powerline. I switch between the 2 when I get bored of one or the other. I decided I won't try any new fonts, it's a waste of time for me and I hate having too many options to choose from, not only fonts but basically everything else too, it's distracting. Same for my editor's theme, I switch between Braver's Solarized Light and Radical. This way I can focus on coding…

> This way I can focus on coding and less on tweaking my environment.

I made myself my own pixel-perfect perfect font, more than 10 years ago. I simply copy it from one system to the next one when I upgrade (either the machine or the OS).

It's basically a modified pixel-perfect Terminus font, but with some elements mixed from an old pixel-perfect Monaco font and some modification of mine.

Something I cannot live without is a tall pipe symbol. And my pipe symbol must have a hole in it in the middle (and it cannot be mistaken for an exclamation mark).

I've got the following as a quick test. The reason for a,b,c,e is to verify that ,{},[], etc. all perfectly align vertically.

Everything is correct, to the pixel.

I don't believe in anti-aliasing for a coding font, not even on a retina display, and I love my 3840x1600 pixels 38" monitor and it's pixel size is perfect to me.

    RA $|-sSTtf the little fortran

    gqy z2Z s5S 8B CG6 DO uv ;; these should look different (8 / B is difficult to get right)
    a!?aA!    [a]
    b!?b      {b}
    c?!d      (c)
    c?c       
    c!c

    if ( a && b || c & d) { [0x88, 0x42, 0xFA, 0xdeadcafebabe]; }

    *if ( a && b || c & d) { [0x88, 0x42, 0xFA, 0xdeadcafebabe]; }*

    ;; found somewhere
    lnt foob1x -= {(0)} "'foo'bar";
    int foOblx == ((0)) 'foo`bar`' `"':
    |nt f0obIx += {{o}} '"O08! LIl1i!!| 7?
the lowercase 's' has a shorter upper bar and the lowercase 'l' is stylised.

The thing is: I obsessed for days, creating my own pixel-perfect font. And I don't need to tweak it anymore: it's perfect (to me, YMMV) and I use it ever since.

Can't share it as I reused both Terminus and chars from Monaco.

FWIW I had more than 10/10 eyesight (once you get at 10, there are additional tests) and in my entire life I've never seen one person beat me at the "read sign on the highway". Pixel-perfect font, no AA, custom made font for me. YMMV. Haters gonna hate.

Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#69

Is it weird that I look at most of the offered pairs and think "meh, both are ok, I guess", but do not feel any preference one way or the other? Like, some fonts look to weird/unusual that I dislike. But most look just fine and I don't really care. Am I weird? Do I lack taste?

It is all about the details:

- Ligatures or not

- *: in the middle (better for things like multiplication), or high (better for things like C pointers)

- Alignment of =, >, - some fonts align -, = and > to that "=>" and "->" look good, others will not, making it arguably look better in isolation, others will optimize for ligatures

- The "i" may look significantly different, some will prioritize consistency, others will prioritize making il1I look distinct. Same idea for 0/O

- Aspect ratio, do you want a wide font, making alignment, indentation, and special characters clearer, or a narrow font, allowing you to cram longer lines into a single screen.

These are compromises, and depending on your style and language, you may prefer one or the other.

Re: CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font

#70

Been running Berkeley Mono for years. Before that i flipped fonts and theme like every week. I sometimes wish you could not change font or color theme at all.

I can sympathize; I shudder to think of how many total hours of my life I've spent tweaking fonts in my text editors.

That said, these days I almost exclusively use Input Mono [0], specifically the "Narrow" variety. With an occasional sprinkling of either Iosevka Fixed or PragmataPro Mono.

0: https://input.djr.com/

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