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Comment by jussij | Hacker News Reader

> Code is an outline. It's not a spreadsheet. Column alignment is not beneficial in most cases

But there are many cases where code works best as a spreadsheet.

For example any time you need to initialise an array of structures, that is best viewed using a grid like pattern.

> but because I was really tired of reformatting multiple lines of code just because I'd refactored one variable or type name. Any decent editor with smart indenting should eliminate most of that effort.

Also if the editor is scriptable editor, it should be possible to create a simple script to semi-automate the task.

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> But there are many cases where code works best as a spreadsheet.

Indeed, that's true, and I don't mean to be too much of a proportional font fanatic. Even if I try to avoid coding styles that require monospaced fonts to be readable, there are always cases where it helps to get a monospaced view of the code.

One feature I really like in an editor is an easy way to switch between proportional and monospaced views. The best support I've seen for this is in Komodo [1]. Like many editors, Komodo supports multiple themes of font face/size/colorization/etc. What it does differently, though, is that each theme has two font selections, a proportional font and a monospaced one. So you can pick your favorite for each, and then choose whichever works best for the particular code you're looking at right now.

Oddly enough, out of the box Komodo doesn't give you a keyboard shortcut to switch between proportional and monospaced, but it's easy enough to add a keyboard shortcut for this. (In the Key Bindings dialog, look for User Interface: Use Fixed/Proportional Font.) I have this set to Alt+O which is unused in a default Komodo installation on Windows, and it's easy to remember because "proportional/monospaced font" has a heck of a lot of "O"s in it. :-)

But when I do use an editor that only offers monospaced fonts, it's not a terrible thing. I use your excellent Zeus IDE [2] for my Go coding and it's a pleasure to work with. Sure, I miss my proportional fonts, but having the integrated debugger and other goodies for Go makes it well worth it.

[1] http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit

[2] http://www.zeusedit.com/

> I use your excellent Zeus IDE [2] for my Go coding and it's a pleasure to work with.

Funnily enough I'm the author of the Zeus editor. Glad to read you like using it :)

> Sure, I miss my proportional fonts, but having the integrated debugger and other goodies for Go makes it well worth it.

Over the years many Zeus users have asked for proportional fonts so you’re not the only user who misses them.

The reality is many years ago, Zeus was designed with only mono-spaced fonts in mind.

At that time, the simple rule of knowing all characters are the same width and height seemed to greatly simplify the design of the editor.

And once that design decision was made it's amazing how many places in the editor code that rule then ends getting coded, making it very difficult to change :(

Given the time again I think the underlying design would be different.

Ah yes, I know how that goes. Very hard to undo a fundamental design decision. Well, proportional or monospaced, Zeus is great either way. :-)

> Also if the editor is scriptable editor, it should be possible to create a simple script to semi-automate the task.

True, but why do it in the first place?

Note that I'm not supporting proportional fonts here -- I much prefer fixed-width -- but I also don't like formatting function signatures like that.

> True, but why do it in the first place?

For me, I prefer reading and editing vertically aligned code.

Also I don't find it overly difficult to make sure everything is line up vertically.

It's not difficult, it's just one more thing to have to do.

Like most things, I think it really just boils down to an aesthetic preference, and it's usually up to whoever actually maintains the code anyway. :)

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