ProFont: The ultimate programming font. | Hacker News Reader

ProFont: The ultimate programming font.

tobias-jung.de

34 pointsgus_massa37 comments

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Panic Sans FTW. (a modified version of Bitstream Vera Sans distributed with Coda.)

http://www.umbrae.net/files/panicsans.png | http://www.command-tab.com/images/programming/perfect_font/p...

That looks nice, thanks for pointing it out.

I second this recommendation. Panic Sans is about as good as it gets.

What are the differences between it and Bitstream? I don't see 'em

That's a bitmap font, which is really good for displays where pixels are large, but which is terrible for displays where pixels are tiny (like, say, the iPod Touch or something). Displays are getting denser, so the way to go is vector-based, not bitmapped.

Here's an interesting thought: you need to make the glyphs as different to each other as you can, for a given language model. Would a font for Lisp be different than a font for Ruby? Could you make an emacs plugin that changed lettershapes based on character probabilities?

aye. back when I was coding on a 9 inch B&W screen with bitmapped everything, it was a great font to use. damn crisp and non-ambiguous at 9pt.

now I use deja vu sans, which is a fork of bitstream vera sans with full unicode.

Claiming any font is the "ultimate" programming font is akin to claiming "blue" is the ultimate color, or "strawberry" is the ultimate flavor of ice cream.

Or thet HN is the ultimate Digg.

We appear to be entering very dangerous waters.

Jeff Atwood wrote about programming fonts some time ago: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html

Don't miss the comments!

I prefer Consolas and then Andale Mono.

Yah this. The one linked looks like ass.

Andale Mono for me. it's very "lightweight" and beautiful. i would use Courier New generally, but after using Andale, it's surprising how heavy and hard to parse Courier is

After going through Courier New, Profont, Consolas, Monaco etc., my favourite programming font ended up being Panic Sans, which comes with Coda, a Mac IDE that I don't use. For developers whose point size of preference hovers closer to 12 points than 6, it's perfect. Sample: http://purefiction.net/paste/panicsans.png

I prefer terminus for pretty much everything:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_YFgpCPoV-8g/RzMRmS_pCVI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/...

I'm currently using Dina, and to date it has been the best programming font I've used.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/

Same here. Since switching to Dina I haven't found another font that I could stare at all day.

No, Bikeshed Sans is the ultimate font.

lol! you're so funny!

Wow the Mac version is distributed as a .sit... old school. I despise anyone who knowingly distributes files as Stuffit archives any more, but this just seems to have not been updated since the days of Mac OS 9.

Inconsolata FTW!

BTW, does anyone here knows what slightly serifed font Red Hat used for their terminal when they introduced the Bluecurve visuals?

There are days I want my terminals with a slightly warmer font than a sans-serif one.

If a kind soul can help, I found a screenshot where it appears.

http://osdir.com/screenshots/fedoracore3test2/87.gif

That's Luxi Mono.

Thanks!

This is a little off topic, but I loved the font in Konsole. And I just freaking loved Konsole, but haven't been able to get working for OS X. Has anyone here been able to?

have you tried iTerm on OSX? It's rad.

http://iterm.sourceforge.net/

This font is so tiny at 1920x1200. It also has odd brackets when editing XML.

I'm a big fan of ProggyClean and Pragmata.

Definitely. Pixel fonts are past their prime on a 24" LCD.

I find ProggySquare to be slightly more readable, partly because of the additional empty space taken up by letters like A

Inconsolata. Hands down.

So true.

http://nullstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/inconsolata....

(Thanks, Google Images)

LOL, looks like crap. Bitstream Vera Mono FTW!

I used to love Bitstream Vera Mono. It's pretty nice.

Although, recently I've switched to Liberation Mono as my monospace weapon of choice.. I'd certainly recommend it.

I use Liberation Mono on Linux, but Consolas on Windows. I've found that the different platforms don't display each other's fonts as nicely.

In the past when the only displays I had access to were relatively low-res (1280x1024) I used ProFont a lot. It's a good font, didn't become bothersome after hours of Emacs work.

But, I use Consolas now on Windows.

Agreed, I don't know what the author is smoking. But then, there's no accounting for taste.

I also use Vera Mono in emacs, and like it a lot. I really feel for the poor folks still using courier (which-way-does-that-quote-go-and-is-that-a-curly-or-paren?) as a code font.

To be fair, though, the linked font is a bitmap, not a vector font. So maybe a better comparison might be to the X11 9x15 or 10x20 fonts, both of which I spent years staring at and like very much.

Totally, and if you use Textmate (for ruby), the theme used in Railscasts is the ultimate theme if you ask me:

http://railscasts.com/about

Looks amazing with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono!

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