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He forgot my favorite programming font, Terminus. It's pretty popular in Linux development. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28typeface%29
Terminus is awesome, it's a shame so many "top programming fonts" forget it.
I say this every time this discussion comes up but I do feel it bears repeating: I switched away from monospaced a while ago and I am never going back. I encourage you to try something like Verdana for a week just to see how it feels.
My IDE is misconfigured, and for html/css code uses Arial, or some other proportional font. It's just painful to watch! The non grid alignment, randomness, just makes it more distracting to me. Perhaps if I was exposed to it for a long er period of time, a week as you suggested, this uneasiness will slowly fade. But, let me ask you: What's that you find so good about it? More content in less space? Why won't you go b…
That said, I'm not against using a nice mono font like Anonymous Pro; I used that font in Acme to write the code and thesis for my Master's.
I say this every time this discussion comes up but I do feel it bears repeating: I switched away from monospaced a while ago and I am never going back. I encourage you to try something like Verdana for a week just to see how it feels.
The first is that Verdana is really nicely hinted, which means that, unlike most other fonts out there, Verdana has the advantage of always technically looking sharp.
The second is that Verdana is mostly monolinear, like Courier or Andale or any of traditional monospaces, there's only the slightest bit of stroke variation (most of it optical), so you get style but you don't get the distraction (onscreen) of stroke modulation
The third is that most proportional fonts have a comparatively larger pitch, so you get more characters in each line, which is also what you start seeing in 'next gen monospaces' that seem to make better use of their allotted horizontal space (and seem less wonky in general).
The last, and arguably most important, is that almost all proportional fonts (verdana included) have got style. It's hard to emphasize enough that most of the arguments for Consolas or Inconsolata or Liberation or ____ are largely due to the fact that those fonts have an overt aesthetic agenda, which is sometimes not apparent in first-gen monospaces (although, to be fair, they and their brethren are stylized, it's just that we've grow numb to it)
I'm personally a monospace sorta person (i like fedra mono)--there are some really nice (alas, non-free) monos out there to choose between that are more fun to use than the more stoic traditional monospaces. Part of why proportional fonts are appealing is that we rarely need monospace fonts anymore: their use is largely vestigial (and aesthetic-driven) and also that many programming languages (python et al) often have highly literate code that benefits from typefaces designed with legibility in mind.
So i'm just sayin, i respect where you're coming from, but don't dismiss monos out of hand. There are nice ones which are coincidentally monospace, but aren't as frumpy or harsh as the monospace fonts that are typically advertised as 'best programming fonts.'
He forgot my favorite programming font, Terminus. It's pretty popular in Linux development. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28typeface%29
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I've just tried it for 10 minutes, and I have to say it seems to work better that i initially expected/feared. So you might not be as crazy as you sound :) I might actually give it a few days and see what happens.
This will affect you differently depending on what language you use and whether you like to align things in columns. Think of how some people format C functions, with each parameter on a new line aligned at the open paren. Personally I find that kind of alignment unnecessary and creates too much busywork. Proportional fonts prevent you from even trying. (Unless your editor supports elastic tabstops, but since very fe…
The M+ Fonts: hugely recommended - http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/
I've been happy with Mensch: http://robey.lag.net/2010/06/21/mensch-font.html , A font based of Apple's Menlo.
I've been slowly shifting from Proggy to Consolas; it was easier once I embraced larger font sizes (I have 20/20 vision, and I'd like to keep that!). At that point, Consolas became a balm for the eyes.