What Makes a Good Programming Font? | Hacker News Reader

What Makes a Good Programming Font?

andersnoras.com

29 pointstheoneill28 comments

I'm not a big fonts person, but when I found Bitsteam Vera Sans Mono I knew I loved it:

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/1897/picture68gr5.png

It just looks fantastic to me — I simply don't get the attraction to fonts which look like they came directly from a 1970's typewriter! :)

(good anti-aliasing on OSX helps too...)

I like your syntax coloring, what editor/color scheme?

Most likely Textmate with the railscasts theme (http://railscasts.com/about).

If you're on OS X and like Vera, you might take a look a Panic Sans, included in the app bundle of Coda. It's a tweaked version Vera Sans Mono. I can't put my finger on what they tweaked, but it's been my preference for some time now.

Linux: Liberation Mono (already in your distro as 'liberation-fonts'). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

Windows: Consolas (install the Word 2007 viewer and you get it for free).

I second that. Liberation Mono rocks. And it is updated somewhat frequently, so it might be worth checking for a newer version or to install on a Mac. (they put a dot in the middle of zeros a while back, for instance)

https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/

Agreed. I can't go past consolas on windows. With linux I wasn't aware of liberation (thanks for that !!), but I've always downloaded courier new.

For linux, I've switched from Liberation to Inconsolata, which was inspired by Consolas; you might want to check it out:

http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html

Thanks dude.

I have been using verdana for two years now and I love it.I also use black on grey background, so my editor looks much like these comments.

Wait. You code in a sans-serif non-fixed-width font!?

Yes. I guess it was Bjarne who convinced me to try it (The C++ Programming Language book was set with a variable width font). I find it pleasing to the eye and the sacrifice is .. well, what? Indenting still works and I don't do the block-style formatted comments etc.

That's crazy talk!

He convinced me for presentation, but I still code in a monospaced font.

It's a really good point -- not since punched cards & F77 has column number meant anything...

So why the monospaced font (I'm guilty of this as well)? Maybe it just sets our minds up for reading code instead of prose?

Most programmer's fonts are sans-serif - eg

* the Bitstream Vera Sans Mono in Linux distro terminals

* Default terminal.app font in OS X

* Powershell / Visual Studio use Consolas in Windows

Those silly bars on the end of your typewriter font distract from the true shape of the character.

Agreed re: variable width being unusual.

I use Inconsolata as an alternative to Monaco: http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html

CodingHorror has some discussion on this:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000157.html

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html

Personally, I used ProFont (http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/index.html) for awhile, but when I got a new computer I forgot about it and reverted back to Monaco.

  -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-*

Clean sans serif, monospaced.

Consistent baseline.

Distinguished forms (i.e., 0/O, S/$, (/{, 1/l, etc.).

Good weighting at various sizes.

Agree with these criteria. I personally like also some "airiness" so the Bitsteam Vera Sans Mono mentioned seems a bit too compact for me, but the Liberation fonts were a nice surprise.

Personal favorites include Andale Mono, Dina and Consolas (Inconsolata is sometimes adequate except it doesn't seem to scale well to different sizes). For some reason I've always used Crisp for javascript, even if it too does not scale well at all, and is in fact too small for my tired eyes.

I'm a big fan of Pragmata. It's the only programming font I've tried that hasn't had nagging annoyances.

http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/fsd/pragmata/. Ooh, a bit Star-Treky.

terminus by Dimitar Zhekov (we aren't related).

"Terminus Font is designed for long (8 and more hours per day) work with computers." http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/

One where __ looks like two underscores and not a single line.

Honestly, I think Droid Sans Mono is my favorite. so clean

imo, monospaced and something i dont have to think about

We've done this before.

http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=328670

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=255257

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=206686

I'm of the opinion that the third or fourth time a topic is repeated, it (and supporting comments) should be added to a HN Wiki.

I think it would make a great resource for us.

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