Is it supposed to look this bad? http://d.pr/i/XCGR
Please, use http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html
my eyes hurt :-)
Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
51–60 of 63 posts
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#52Repost from a year ago, link to existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354396 Including the comment I was about to type before I realized it had already been written: "I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and i…
Just curious, what would you say about this font sample: http://i.imgur.com/DSXqMCZ.png ? (It's a modification of Terminus, with smaller letter height to have a bit more whitespace between the lines)
I'm not the person you're replying to, but my answer: dizzying and illegible.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#53Repost from a year ago, link to existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354396 Including the comment I was about to type before I realized it had already been written: "I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and i…
Just curious, what would you say about this font sample: http://i.imgur.com/DSXqMCZ.png ? (It's a modification of Terminus, with smaller letter height to have a bit more whitespace between the lines)
Individual characters can be made out, but words are hard to read. Not enough separation between letters and symbols, so constructs like "(pred=%i)\t" are harder to visually parse. I'm also not a fan of aliased pixel fonts -- it really exacerbates the picket-fence effect while reading.
Here's what your code sample looks like in Source Code Pro:
http://i.imgur.com/uAknyGB.png
Smaller font:
http://i.imgur.com/m0p17tm.png
Notice how all letters take up the full horizontal width so words clump together. It's easy to see that a space is a space, and not just an "i" next to an "l"
It's also worth noting that I had to try 3 separate OCR processors with your sample before I got one that didn't output complete garbage.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#54Repost from a year ago, link to existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354396 Including the comment I was about to type before I realized it had already been written: "I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and i…
> the font is incredibly difficult to read.
"Fonts" are computer code. Typefaces are what you see, unless you're editing the font that will set the type on your screen.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#55Every time I learn about a new programmer font, I try it for a day. It makes me sad that I apparently will never find one I like better than Inconsolata.
I've been using Fira Sans Mono [0] since Mozilla released it, I love it. It's worth a try. https://i.imgur.com/h9yXXdx.png
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#56Looks kind of blurry.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#57Repost from a year ago, link to existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354396 Including the comment I was about to type before I realized it had already been written: "I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and i…
> the font is incredibly difficult to read. "Fonts" are computer code. Typefaces are what you see, unless you're editing the font that will set the type on your screen.
From the wiki on Font:
In modern usage, with the advent of digital typography, "font" is frequently synonymous with "typeface". In particular, the use of "vector" or "outline" fonts means that different sizes of a typeface can be dynamically generated from one design. Each style may still be in a separate "font file"—for instance, the typeface "Bulmer" may include the fonts "Bulmer roman", "Bulmer italic", "Bulmer bold" and "Bulmer extended"—but the term "font" might be applied either to one of these alone or to the whole typeface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font
While I appreciate your semantic formalism, considering that my fonts are collected and managed in my Font Book rather than my Typeface book, I think you've lost that battle, for now.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#58Repost from a year ago, link to existing discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354396 Including the comment I was about to type before I realized it had already been written: "I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and i…
"Wow, that's a boring attitude." My response to your quote had also already been written, isn't this a convenient day?
"Sorry if I come across as too negative -- I definitely 100% support people trying out new things." I just don't think that the byline "for programmers by programmers" is a good one. It was not meant to be an evaluation of the typeface itself.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#59I admire the effort that went into this. As anyone who ever tried creating a font knows, it's really tough putting it all together.
It's not _that_ bad at 12pt, but all that's wrong with the font really shows with smaller sizes. Stroke weights are inconsistent, eyes too small. The font was meant to be "clear, pragmatic and very readable". Right now, it's none of these.
Technical problems can be solved, and the font will look good to some. I don't like it, but that's just a matter of taste. Layman's opinion on aesthetics can only have statistical value (and it's questionable if professional's opinion should be valued more).
What really bothers me is pretentiousness of the first paragraph. Basically, "everything was meant to be great, so it is". That - along with a todo that says nothing about fixing flaws, but dreams of having cyrillic, greek, unicode - is the biggest problem of all.
Fixing that first would go a long way toward making this a newsworthy item and a font to keep an eye on.
Re: Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious, what would you say about this font sample: http://i.imgur.com/DSXqMCZ.png ? (It's a modification of Terminus, with smaller letter height to have a bit more whitespace between the lines)
Individual characters can be made out, but words are hard to read. Not enough separation between letters and symbols, so constructs like "(pred=%i)\t" are harder to visually parse. I'm also not a fan of aliased pixel fonts -- it really exacerbates the picket-fence effect while reading. Here's what your code sample looks like in Source Code Pro: http://i.imgur.com/uAknyGB.png Smaller font: http://i.imgur.com/m0p17tm.p…
Thanks for such a great analysis! You pointed out some things I did not really think about. Especially the way Source Code Pro handles "i"s and "l"s.
I will try to add 1px of horizontal space between letters. The goal was to make the font vertically compact, but still legible. The size is small and it feels quite clumped though.