Ligatures are great, but I just love the cursive italics used by Operator Mono. Haven't justified the price to myself yet, but am considering it since I haven't been able to find any other fonts that do cursive italics.
Matthew Butterick’s font Triplicate has true italics and a Code version with programming alternates.
www.triplicatefont.com
I tried it and instantly switched all of my editors and terminals over - it's clear, legible at different sizes, and the monospace script "italics" are great for variable names, comments etc.