Name: Anonymous 2006-08-09 15:04
Today, I got the idea of using proportional (non–fixed width) fonts for programming. I used my typical language repertoire of Lisp, Python and C as test material. My remarks (note: I'm using Emacs on OS X with the default font smoothing settings):
* At least for me, proportional fonts are generally much more legible than monospaced ones — the "flow" of reading is vastly better, and scanning text is easier — and I find myself less often distracted when reading them
* It is clear that most proportional fonts haven't been designed with programming in mind; punctuation — especially brackets — in many of them turns easily into illegible jumble
* My favourite proportional fonts thus far have been Verdana and, rather surprisingly, Bitstream Vera Serif. They both offer clear ([{}]) and l1I separation, among other important things (Bitstream Vera Sans fucks up l and I).
* I'm not into lining up variable declarations, drawing cutesy ASCII boxes around comments and other related formatting masturbation (and fortunately don't work in any projects that does), so proportional fonts don't seem to visually break up any code I work on
* In a couple of occasions, though, I found some logically tabular code sections, which no longer visually convey their meaning. I've been thinking about creating either a toggle-monospace function or some kind of simple "start / end monospace section" tag processing minor mode for Emacs for these rare occasions.
* From the bit of research I did on the subject, it seems that proportional fonts are de facto among Smalltalkers. I've been meaning to get into Smalltalk for a while now, so that's an interesting tidbit.
Overall, I am very pleased by how well proportional fonts work for programming, and plan on continue using them. Are there any other /prog/rammers familiar with the subject? Any particular fonts I should try out?
* At least for me, proportional fonts are generally much more legible than monospaced ones — the "flow" of reading is vastly better, and scanning text is easier — and I find myself less often distracted when reading them
* It is clear that most proportional fonts haven't been designed with programming in mind; punctuation — especially brackets — in many of them turns easily into illegible jumble
* My favourite proportional fonts thus far have been Verdana and, rather surprisingly, Bitstream Vera Serif. They both offer clear ([{}]) and l1I separation, among other important things (Bitstream Vera Sans fucks up l and I).
* I'm not into lining up variable declarations, drawing cutesy ASCII boxes around comments and other related formatting masturbation (and fortunately don't work in any projects that does), so proportional fonts don't seem to visually break up any code I work on
* In a couple of occasions, though, I found some logically tabular code sections, which no longer visually convey their meaning. I've been thinking about creating either a toggle-monospace function or some kind of simple "start / end monospace section" tag processing minor mode for Emacs for these rare occasions.
* From the bit of research I did on the subject, it seems that proportional fonts are de facto among Smalltalkers. I've been meaning to get into Smalltalk for a while now, so that's an interesting tidbit.
Overall, I am very pleased by how well proportional fonts work for programming, and plan on continue using them. Are there any other /prog/rammers familiar with the subject? Any particular fonts I should try out?