Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
But I, too, noticed the difference and I don't think it's just subjective. Black-on-white is generally easier on my eye in the short-term but for the long-term (e.g. coding sessions) I strongly prefer white-on-black because staring at a mostly white screen for extended periods of time makes me dizzy.