Call me ancient, but I really miss the 3278, with its distinctive 6's and 9's. I never could find its original bitmaps, much less a vector font like it.
Top Programming Fonts
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#22I am a big fan of Envy Type R.
You probably mean Envy Code R? And yes, it's a great font. I wouldn't use any other.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#23In the past, we’ve had to decide between tiny monospace fonts or jagged edges. But today, modern operating systems do a great job of anti-aliasing, making monospace fonts look great at any size. It’s not 1990 anymore. Give your tired eyes a break and bump up that font size. No, thanks. All the anti-aliased screenshots in his post look blurry and some make me outright cringe. Also he missed my personal favorite: http:…
That font makes me cringe. It reminds me of when the screen resolution is too narrow, widening all text.
Same here. The letter-forms themselves look good, though. Maybe if the spacing between the letters were narrower? The kerning (that's what it's called, right?) seems unusually large, particularly for a fixed-width font.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#24ProFont - what other font is easily readable down to 6pt?
upvoted because profont is simply lovely, but i can't get it to work reasonably on the mac. switched first to inconsolata, but i like consolas a little bit better.
I haven't tried it on the Mac yet only because I don't have a way to unstuff it w/o enduring that horrible stuffit website...
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
That font makes me cringe. It reminds me of when the screen resolution is too narrow, widening all text.
Same here. The letter-forms themselves look good, though. Maybe if the spacing between the letters were narrower? The kerning (that's what it's called, right?) seems unusually large, particularly for a fixed-width font.
Well, trisk is very legible for me at normal reading distance where e.g. proggy or profont feel too squeezed and slightly too small. But ultimately it's also a matter of taste, ofcourse.
Generally screenshots can hardly do programming fonts justice. You have to load them into your editor and try them out on familar code.
Most of the fonts showcased on that page look perfectly fine to me from the images. I only learned that I can't bear an anti-aliased font and about my various gripes with the other fixed contenders because I once went and tried all of them for at least a few hours each.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#26In the past, we’ve had to decide between tiny monospace fonts or jagged edges. But today, modern operating systems do a great job of anti-aliasing, making monospace fonts look great at any size. It’s not 1990 anymore. Give your tired eyes a break and bump up that font size. No, thanks. All the anti-aliased screenshots in his post look blurry and some make me outright cringe. Also he missed my personal favorite: http:…
That's a good-looking font, but I personally need a big visual distinction, like a slash or a dot, between O's and 0's. (I do like the distinction between l's and 1's, though - lots of fonts screw that up.)
Well, I think I would prefer a slashed zero for confidence, too, but can't say this has ever been an issue in my years of real world use.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#27Tried all of them, still using LuxiMono.. love it.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#28Also in the category of improved Vera family fonts is Espresso, which ships with the web editor of the same name (http://macrabbit.com/espresso/).
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#29By my reckoning, six of the ten have major flaws that make them completely unacceptable for use as a programming font. Courier, Profont, Consolas, and Incosolata all have insufficient distinctions between 'l' (lowercase L) and '1' (one). Droid Sans Mono has an 'O' (uppercase O) that can pass for '0' (zero). Perhaps by virtue of the font size, Proggy has a lowercase L that can pass for a vertical bar at a glimpse. If…
For day-to-day programming, why does l/1, O/0 matter? I usually don't see them in contexts where they could be confused.
Re: Top Programming Fonts
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here. The letter-forms themselves look good, though. Maybe if the spacing between the letters were narrower? The kerning (that's what it's called, right?) seems unusually large, particularly for a fixed-width font.
Well, trisk is very legible for me at normal reading distance where e.g. proggy or profont feel too squeezed and slightly too small. But ultimately it's also a matter of taste, ofcourse. Generally screenshots can hardly do programming fonts justice. You have to load them into your editor and try them out on familar code. Most of the fonts showcased on that page look perfectly fine to me from the images. I only learne…
Agreed. Aside from a few major variables (fixed-width or variable-width, anti-aliased or no, weight), and ruling out fonts with obvious flaws like making 0 and O look too similar, it's largely a matter of taste.
I've found that some fonts look much better as light text on dark backgrounds, or vice-versa. I use terminus (http://shenani.gen.nz/~scott/img/terminus-sample.png), but something about it doesn't look right to me on a light background.
