Top Programming Fonts • Hacker News Board

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#71

Post by martincmartin » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:03 PM UTC

Am I the only one who programs in a proportional font? It's helpful for the same reason it's helpful in print: the letters are more distinguished from each other so the brain recognizes them more quickly, and you can fit more text into the same space.

I use a modified version of Georgia which adds a slash through the zero and changes the l (ell) to look less like the 1 (one).

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#72

Post by bittersweet » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:10 PM UTC

yamilg wrote: post #49

I'm in love with Meslo https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font works great both on my iTerm as well as in TextMate. What makes this font special is the L/M/S variations in the leading (line height). Give it a try, you won't regret!

I'm trying this out at the moment (14 pt S DZ) but the current line marking in VIM for example looks weird because there is more whitespace on the bottom of the characters than at the top.

Other than that it is a welcome improvement to Menlo regular.

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#73

Post by oinksoft » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:12 PM UTC

martincmartin wrote: post #71

Am I the only one who programs in a proportional font? It's helpful for the same reason it's helpful in print: the letters are more distinguished from each other so the brain recognizes them more quickly, and you can fit more text into the same space. I use a modified version of Georgia which adds a slash through the zero and changes the l (ell) to look less like the 1 (one).

Variable-width fonts help with natural language, to detect phonemes or even words. Unfortunately, we are mostly dealing with machine language, where audio is not so important, so character-by-character reading is the norm.

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#74

Post by nickburdick » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:13 PM UTC

telemachos wrote: post #2

I love Inconsolata, but there's just one thing about it: the curly quotation marks. If you have that same quibble, good news: Inconsolata-dz[1]. Inconsolata with straight quotes. [1] http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-dou...

Awesome link, I've been using Inconsolata for years and had the exact same issue.

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#75

Post by mlntn » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:16 PM UTC

Liberation Mono would be a good addition to the list.

https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#76

Post by whatswtlogin » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

ujjvala wrote: post #35

Why out of nowhere is this old article brought up ?

Just to annoy you... that's the reason. It worked! I can't be1ieve it!

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#77

Post by rezaprima » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:30 PM UTC

SlyShy wrote: post #8

I like to use Code Envy R: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod... . It's legible at 8pt, which lets me fit big amounts of code even on smaller screens.

Just nit picking, but your misspelling of Envy Code R (I read it as "envy coder") to Code Envy R gave me a deja-vu. And I found your comment at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287909. You are not alone there, though :)

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#78

Post by skermes » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

HannoverFiste wrote: post #57

Symmetry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking - most of the monospace fonts I see are totally fine and I really don't care about the differences between the 10 he mentioned as being good. But when I go to windows and run cmd.exe I'm blown away by just how ugly the font they use there is.

I'm blown away that you can change the font for cmd.exe, but you only get one other option: Lucida Console. Still, it beats "Raster Fonts".

You can actually add more fonts, though it requires editing the registry and doesn't work for all fonts, I think. It does let you at least get Consolas, which is good enough for the time I spend in cmd.

http://keznews.com/3308_Adding_fonts_to_cmd_exe

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#79

Post by RexRollman » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

Although I am not a programmer, I do prefer monospaced fonts, and my favorite right now is the bitmap font Tamsyn. I recently discovered it via the Arch Linux wiki and I now have it set up as the font for my Xterm windows (set via .Xdefaults).

My favorite TTF monospaced font has got to be Consolas, which I use in Windows as the font for Foobar2000 and Notepad2 (I keep everything in plain text).

Re: Top Programming Fonts

#80

Post by gurraman » Wed, May 25, 2011, 3:49 PM UTC

telemachos wrote: post #2

I love Inconsolata, but there's just one thing about it: the curly quotation marks. If you have that same quibble, good news: Inconsolata-dz[1]. Inconsolata with straight quotes. [1] http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-dou...

I love the straight quotes, but I'm experiencing increased vertical space between lines in the terminal as well. Seems like the author has the same "problem" judged by the screenshots posted.