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Comment by Erlich_Bachman | Hacker News Reader

Every thread about programming fonts is not complete without mentioning the wonderful website https://app.programmingfonts.org (no affiliation, I just find it really useful) which lists all the free programming-related fonts with live preview (for example every single font from the article, and every one mentioned so far in every comment in this thread is already there in the app) - it allows quick one-click preview with custom text on each font, and has direct links for downloading said fonts.

Every font from this thread is already there in the app so you might as well just try them all.

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That is a truly fantastic site but it doesn't mention https://dank.sh/ which I first heard about in this thread.

Just to nitpick.

But I am right now going through every one of those fonts in the app to compare with the one I've used for almost a decade now.

Do you like it?

One of the things that really gets in the way of comprehension for me are typefaces with too much personality. These cutesy italics etc. really seem to affect my ability to get on with the job at hand.

This is why, despite trying, I've yet to find something that can outdo Consolas on Windows. I tried Fira this and that, Source code pro and a bunch of others from Google Fonts. They all are inferior to Consolas in my eyes. They'll either be missing the slotted '0', or look crowded in small sizes etc.

Do I like Dank Mono? I am indifferent to it. It hasn't sold me on switching from Source Code Pro.

It's better than a lot of other fonts I've seen on programmingfonts.org so far. But just because a font is good or on par with my current one doesn't mean I'll use it. Force of habit is a big factor.

The guy from PracticalTypography also recommends Source Code Pro as his free monospaced font of choice.

Microsoft has another font called Cascadia which I think is their attempt to improve Fira Code.

I've moved to it recently and is my new favorite. Mainly because my eyes are getting old so I don't need it to look good at 7 pt since I couldn't see it anyway. And I like thicker fonts like this.

My one complaint is the tilde.

Have you tried Ubuntu Mono? It's not as thick but is quite readable. Also their bold variant might satisfy you if the regular doesn't. DejaVu Mono is also quite adequate.

I found it terrible, not only because of the surplus personality, but due to aesthetic and readability issues.

Readability - the r looks to me closer to an i, not the i of this font but a generic i, I find it confusing and it slows me down.

Aesthetically - the f character have space before it that in many combinations cuts a word to two, for example in the word delightful. Generally the font is mono-spaced, but the space between and after characters varies a lot.

I found it terribly incomplete. $40 and it can’t cover all four standard weights: regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. I believe it was last one, bold italic, that it was missing and the website is careful to obscure that fact.

And the ridiculous of those italics glyphs. Like, who decided that the f and l should have huge decorative slings but not the g?

Ubuntu Mono is the only one that rivals Consolas, imho. I used Monaco for the longest time but keep coming back to one of these two

I use Monaco for coding and Ubuntu Mono for my terminals, for years. Best combo so far although Agave does look nice.

Too much of the cursive can damage readability, but if it's constrained, then it actually helps a lot. I use Dank Mono and write primarily in JS. I use the cursive for things like `let` and `const`, which helps them stand out. It's a very nice typeface, well worth the money.

I truely wonder how many people purchased a font for coding, at $40 when so many perfectly suitable fonts are free/open source.

Not to sound flippant or pretentious, but for me, $40 is practically free for a software tool. On top of that, I can expense licenses if I use them for my work. I’m guessing that most people in my position would have no problem paying $40 for a font.

It's still a bit much IMO. It reminds me of Sublime Text being priced at $70 or Input Mono being $40-100+ depending on the options you choose.

I assume they are willing to accept the risk of piracy and/or lost sales to free alternatives like Fira Code, and plan to make their money on institutional licenses instead.

I would bet that most who wouldn’t buy Sublime at $70 wouldn’t buy it at $35 either. If you’re paying for text editors and fonts they’re probably important enough to you that you probably won’t let price deter you unless it’s truly exorbitant.

Personally speaking I’m a bit more spendy on small dev products because I know it’s harder for them to stay afloat, unlike Jetbrains or Adobe which aren’t really impacted by my purchase decisions in any meaningful way.

I am not saying you are wrong but to me the real problem is death of a thousand cuts problem: I have zero issues paying for quality work and I do; but when these things start piling up -- fonts, images, logos/icons, IDEs, creative software -- you can easily find yourself spending $1000.

I am not stingy but I feel drowned in a sea of good work each requiring its payment. This phenomena turned me off paying for fonts and settling for free ones.

It only lists free fonts

Is there a side-by-side comparison between this and Fira Code? They look very similar (apart from the italics).

Thanks for the introduction to Dank. First time I've seen it and I like the look of it. Particularly the 'f' shape.

What's the closest free font you've seen to it? As it's so different from my usual monospace font I want to try ssomething similar first to see how I find it, before spending money on it.

I find Dank's "f" disturbingly idiosyncratic.

All free fonts I think? It doesn’t list for example Dank or Operator.

That's probably the case, thank you, I should have mentioned that.

Indeed, just the free ones. Although perhaps I should list the commercial ones too in some way. That said, I do tend to feature them in the tumblr blog, so you can search that for a preview, background info and a link.

Seems to be missing Computer Modern's Typewriter Text face (a.k.a. "CMU Typewriter Text"), which was my primary monospaced typeface (and still is on all except my work laptop, which I switched over to Fantasque Sans Mono since it's a better pairing with Comic Neue). It's a lovely font, the only fault being the lack of a slotted 0.

:/ The bitmap fonts are rendered with anti-aliasing. That's too bad. The advantage of bitmap fonts is how crisp they look. Here, they're pretty hard to read at small sizes.

Only if they aren't at their native point size. If you're on chrome, then you're right, because chrome renders how it wants, in classic "I know better than you" style.

Thank you!!!! I've been looking for something like this for some time now.

what I don't like about thus site is that there are no large bitmap fonts (not even the x11 standard bitmaps, which are great)

What bitmap fonts do you miss? The site is currently restricted to fonts with a license that allow me to serve a web font for the live preview. So while there are a bunch of bitmap fonts in there, there might be some missing. I love to find out about new fonts though.

i mean the standard "fixed" X window fonts, that come with x.org and have a large variety of sizes. They are typically the default font for xterm. They are everywhere, in debian for example, so no problem with the license.

In the US at last check, bitmap fonts weren't subject to copyright. Also, the X11 fonts I've looked at had a license string something like "these glyphs are unencumbered".

I suspect those X11 bitmap fonts are in arcane 1980s formats that would require a chain of conversions-- from bitmap to vector to get them to Postscript Type 1 or TTF, and then from TTF to WOFF.

Yes, I’ve seen a lot with old formats. I don’t think the bitmaps themselves are a problem, I already have a bunch (maybe they are faux bitmap though, not sure actually). And they don’t need to be woff though, that just adds some compression and prevents installation. The latter of course not being an issue for the fonts that are featured here.

You can find the bitmaps on the standard X distribution, or more easily in many programs that embed them. E.g., terminology: https://github.com/billiob/terminology/tree/master/data/font...

I am genuinely interested in knowing the appeal programmers find in fonts.

Im not sure I follow. Are you saying you don't understand why people who stare at letters on a screen all day every day for a living might have an interest in the fonts used on said screen?

A good programming font helps avoid confusion. For example, it should be clear if a character is l, I, or 1 without having to see them next to each other (also o, O and 0 as well as others). A font should also make reading code as pleasant as possible (though of course this is highly subjective).

When you consider that programmers spend most of their time reading code, it's not surprising that many programmers care about the font being used.

We stare at text for hours on end, every day. We want the text to be functional... and pleasant to look at. I change fonts frequently, just to spice up my life - it's a little like changing your desktop background on a regular basis.

Well, we spend almost all of our time reading code. I think it only makes sense we develop strong opinions about the font we do that in. It's an essential part of the interface.

Practically, we look at text all day long, so having a font that is easy to read is good ergonomics. A font may be good for code, but might not work as well in a tool like htop or gotop.

Monospaced fonts are also interesting from an artistic perspective that resonates with programmers. Font designers are able to be expressive and original despite — or perhaps because of — the constraints of the problem: all characters must have the same width and the text should be readable for long periods of time, often at small sizes.

Doesn’t have Dina :P

Sadly, Dina is only available as a Windows FON file format, which I can't use or host in a web app.

There are at least 2 TTF conversions if you search around.

E.g. https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=15281.0

Not allowed by the license usually

    The Dina font is free. You are welcome to use, distribute
    and modify it however you want, just don't use it for
    anything illegal or claim that you made it.*

https://www.dcmembers.com/jibsen/download/61/

Hmm, that sounds like discrimination of fields of endeavour => not open source :'(

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