[HN Gopher] Modern Mono
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Modern Mono
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 122 points
       Date   : 2023-02-13 17:55 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tbray.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tbray.org)
        
       | vbernat wrote:
       | In the Emacs screenshots, I am curious what "Combined " means.
        
       | deevus wrote:
       | I thought this was going to be about C#. I was a little
       | disappointed that it was about fonts, heh.
        
       | tbolt wrote:
       | If you're on MacOS, SF Mono is available out-of-the-box pretty
       | sure. I use it in Terminal.app and text editors (mostly Nova.app)
       | and it looks great.
        
       | daneel_w wrote:
       | I've completely fallen for Cascadia Code -
       | https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code - which I think
       | deserves a mention.
        
       | fernandotakai wrote:
       | i've been using dejavu sans mono for... so long that whenever i
       | see other fonts i get weird out.
       | 
       | i totally get people that don't like it, but fonts are so
       | personal that i don't really care.
        
       | macrael wrote:
       | I don't know why this gets me so hot but you really don't need to
       | be using a monospaced font for code anymore. Monospaced fonts are
       | an abomination created because it made programming early
       | terminals easier, we've long since outgrown our use for them and
       | yet they are entrenched in programming culture because we still
       | use terminal emulators based on those same standards to this day.
       | Give your eyes a rest and look at your code in a variable width
       | font. I've been using Avenir for years and it is so nice.
        
         | ricardobeat wrote:
         | What about alignment? The space character is much narrower in
         | most fonts, making code have a terrible rythm.
        
           | Stratoscope wrote:
           | The key to using a proportional font is to give up alignment
           | completely, and only use indentation.
           | 
           | Once you do that, it no longer matters whether you use a
           | proportional or monospaced font.
           | 
           | The Black formatter for Python is an interesting example. It
           | strictly uses indentation only and never uses alignment.
           | 
           | As a result, Black-formatted code is equally readable in any
           | font, monospaced or proportional. I use my own customized
           | proportional font called Trebuchet++, and Black code looks
           | great in it.
           | 
           | If you didn't know I was using a proportional font, you might
           | not even notice that it wasn't monospaced.
           | 
           | As you may guess, Trebuchet++ started out as Trebuchet MS,
           | which I found I really enjoy reading on a high-DPI display.
           | Then I started tweaking things in FontForge:
           | 
           | Trebuchet MS has a terrible tilde character that looks too
           | much like a minus sign. So I put in a better defined glyph
           | for that.
           | 
           | One problem in a proportional font if you use
           | names_with_underscores as required by too many coding
           | standards: the underscore character is much too wide compared
           | to a period. This gives a visual grouping that is the
           | opposite of what you want, for example in foo_bar.moo_car(),
           | "bar" and "moo" are closer together than "foo" and "bar" or
           | "moo" and "car". This is misleading visually.
           | 
           | So I used FontForge to add a bit of space on each side of the
           | dot, and add _negative_ space on each side of the underscore.
           | In the example above, this pulls the  "foo" and "bar" in
           | "foo_bar" closer to each other, and similary for "moo_car".
           | At the same time, it adds some separation between "bar" and
           | "moo".
           | 
           | The difference is subtle, but in terms of visual grouping it
           | avoids having the code read like this:                 foo
           | bar moo  car
           | 
           | and more like this:                 foo bar  moo car
           | 
           | I have a couple of other tweaks I haven't gotten to yet. In
           | particular I want to add a bit of margin on the inside of
           | parentheses and square brackets. In my own code where I get
           | to choose the style, I've always uses a space inside those. I
           | find this offers a real improvement in readability. But if I
           | can't do that, at least I can fix it with some font tweaks!
        
           | macrael wrote:
           | I've found I don't miss the ability to carefully align stuff
           | outside of the initial indentation. I actually use a slightly
           | modified Avenir that prints a wider space if it's the first
           | thing in a line, making the indentation stand out more. The
           | rhythm of a general line of code I think is improved because
           | it reads like regular text.
        
           | Narishma wrote:
           | That's what tabs are for.
        
         | Freedom2 wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | whalesalad wrote:
         | A buddy of mine uses Lucida Grande as his programming font and
         | it makes me cry every time I see it.
        
       | durandal1 wrote:
       | If you had asked me 1 year ago whether I would pay $75 for a
       | coding font I would have laughed at you. And yet, here we are, my
       | font of choice is Berkeley Mono any day, everyday.
        
       | brundolf wrote:
       | It's weird to see the author talk about "information density"
       | with monospace fonts. Am I missing something, maybe
       | misinterpreting what he means by it?
        
         | Etheryte wrote:
         | I'd wager the context in which it is used gives a clue:
         | 
         | > More compact than this overview's average but so graceful
         | that I'll take that and welcome the information density.
         | 
         | My guess is they mean how wide or narrow one character is in a
         | given monospace font.
        
           | brundolf wrote:
           | Yeah, that was my best guess too: _visual_ density
           | 
           | "Information density" normally means "how much information
           | can fit in a piece of the screen", which is going to be the
           | same for all monospace fonts (at the same font size, anyway)
        
       | xrayarx wrote:
       | TFA looks for the perfect monospaced font in the Mac OS terminal,
       | long article
        
       | huhtenberg wrote:
       | Obligatory mention of Mensch -
       | https://robey.lag.net/2010/06/21/mensch-font.html
       | 
       | Don't know if it counts as "modern" being 13 years old, but it's
       | the best there is.
        
       | W0lf wrote:
       | I have switched to Operator Mono about 10 years ago. This font is
       | not free though. However it was the only font (at the time I was
       | looking at at least) that had a monospaced italic version which I
       | found looked slick. So I ended up buying that font and used it
       | ever since.
        
       | yes_but_no wrote:
       | Few more fonts that lesser known, but worth to take a look imo -
       | Basically a Mono https://experi.mentallydesigned.com/type/bam/ -
       | Messina Sans https://www.luzi-type.ch/messina-sans - PP Fraktion
       | Mono https://experi.mentallydesigned.com/type/bam/
        
       | acuozzo wrote:
       | It's not mentioned in TFA, but I really love "Monofur".
       | 
       | DAE know of a more complete lookalike with more glyphs?
        
         | mcguire wrote:
         | Monofur has been my goto text font for a long time.
        
         | stronglikedan wrote:
         | That's a nice font. Thanks for the link. And thankfully, I hate
         | glyphs.
        
       | AceJohnny2 wrote:
       | Everyone plugging their favorite font, but here's an easy way to
       | compare them side-by-side to help you choose:
       | 
       | https://www.codingfont.com
       | 
       | (featured on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29010443)
       | 
       | Also this site to view a wide collection of programming fonts:
       | https://www.programmingfonts.org
        
         | cormullion wrote:
         | Another good comparison site:
         | 
         | https://devfonts.gafi.dev
        
         | Night_Thastus wrote:
         | Thanks for the send. I'm new to choosing a font for my editors,
         | and just went through the tournament. I've got to say,
         | Inconsolata is quite a finessed font for coding. It definitely
         | seems to work well for me.
         | 
         | I do wish that site let you "exclude" certain options so they
         | never appear in the tournament at all. It would have saved
         | time, one or two are so awful they aren't work doing
         | comparisons on.
        
         | dimator wrote:
         | i love the tournament idea!
         | 
         | i downloaded my winner, installed it, changed my editor... and
         | immediately went back to Monaco :) there's a lot of cognitive
         | momentum to overcome in switching fonts.
        
         | Mindless2112 wrote:
         | The problem with codingfont.com is that it overrides the line
         | height, so you won't see what the line height will actually
         | look like in your editor, which is something that I care about.
        
           | AlanYx wrote:
           | If your editor doesn't allow you to override the font's
           | default line height (to whatever you like), there's a nice
           | little tool you can use to do this to the font file itself:
           | https://github.com/source-foundry/font-line
           | 
           | This is also useful for mixing and matching fonts. Nicolas
           | Rougier uses this in NANO Emacs to hack the Victor Mono
           | italic to have the same line height as Roboto Mono.
        
         | amanzi wrote:
         | Playing the font tournament is fun, especially with the font
         | names turned off. I ended up with Fira Code (my current
         | preference) vs Fira Mono in the final round.
        
         | AceJohnny2 wrote:
         | Also, because people tend to be nitpicky about particular font
         | features, such as:
         | 
         | - g with a curve or loop at the bottom?
         | 
         | - 0s barred, dotted or _gasp_ nothing?
         | 
         | - $ with full-length bar or just top/bottom pins?
         | 
         | - etc
         | 
         | There are some fonts families out there that let you select
         | just the right set for you, for example Input:
         | https://input.djr.com/info/
        
       | fallat wrote:
       | Why would he miss the best of all? DejaVu Sans Mono. This font is
       | the only thing I come back to decade after decade. There's too
       | much good to say about it.
        
       | __mharrison__ wrote:
       | I used Envy Code R for a long time and switched to Iosevka a few
       | years back. Most mono fonts feel too spread out. (From the looks
       | of the fonts, most folks probably feel the opposite of me...)
        
         | replwoacause wrote:
         | Love Envy Code R.
        
       | davidy123 wrote:
       | I like ligatures, little quirks (relative to ordinary fonts) make
       | output more interesting.
       | 
       | I wanted to get a portable monitor with a high hz rate for VR
       | applications, and separately text test output. The best I could
       | find, without spending too much on something that'll be better in
       | the near future, is 16" 2560x1600. So not very high PPD. Anyone
       | have any suggestions for a font that won't look grainy? I use it
       | in portrait.
        
         | cosmotic wrote:
         | The last thing I want is for my text to look interesting. I
         | want it to be boring and instantly recognizable. I want text
         | editors showing it to work predictably. Two characters should
         | show as two glyphs with the background showing through the
         | middle. All glyphs should be the same width. Ligatures break
         | these universal consistencies and stick out, screaming for
         | attention. I want my text to be absolutely silent.
        
           | nmeofthestate wrote:
           | I recently started using a font that has ligatures - they
           | don't break alignment of mono-spaced text, for example a two-
           | character ligature takes up the space of two characters. I am
           | not thrown by != showing up as an equals sign with a slash
           | through it, because I can remember that this is in fact "!=".
           | It's easier to read than the "raw" version. All in all I'm
           | sold.
        
             | cosmotic wrote:
             | I can remember that the inequality symbol means != but I'd
             | prefer the lower cognitive load of not having to recall
             | anything at all.
             | 
             | I like that Typing "!=" results in "!=" being printed to
             | the screen. I like that pressing backspace only affects the
             | single preceding character/glyph instead of converting the
             | ligature back into its constituent parts.
             | 
             | It's a consistency thing. I'm _never_ reading math
             | textbooks written with latex and all the fancy ligatures
             | and symbols. I spend my entire day reading and writing
             | code, so consistency there is paramount.
        
           | DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
           | I find ligatures makes certain symbols instantly
           | recognizable. Two characters, such as "=>" or "<-" look like
           | math symbols, but then it takes one more step to realize no
           | it's an arrow.
        
       | oltmang wrote:
       | Why no Comic Mono? https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/
        
       | panda88888 wrote:
       | I like iA Writer Duospace. It is not a strictly monospaced font,
       | but imo the additional half width really makes m/w much more
       | readable.
        
       | _boffin_ wrote:
       | Tossing this one in here as it's a combination of Isoveska &
       | PragmataPro: https://github.com/shytikov/pragmasevka
       | 
       | Been using it for a bit and I've really fallen in love with it.
        
       | globalreset wrote:
       | In my experience on every setup: different OS version, different
       | screen, etc. the rendering of fonts gives slightly different
       | results, to the point, I just choose whatever works best at a
       | given moment, and don't get too attached to it.
        
       | graypegg wrote:
       | I've stuck with Victor Mono for a while now, since I like having
       | comments in cursive. I know that's not for everyone. I just seem
       | to parse prose a little easier with joined up letters.
       | 
       | https://rubjo.github.io/victor-mono/
        
       | bigbottomenergy wrote:
       | Wow screenshots of text rendered on a notoriously bad text
       | renderer, then downscaled and posted in a blog. A text-based
       | description of the fonts might be worse, but only barely.
       | 
       | Yeah, man, so much effort and every screenshot looks identical in
       | context in the blog post.
       | 
       | Iosevka and Iosevka-Comfy for the win.
        
         | rzzzt wrote:
         | Click on the images to embiggen.
        
           | CyberDildonics wrote:
           | You probably meant 'enlarge'. "Embiggen" was made up by the
           | simpsons as a joke.
        
             | timbray wrote:
             | Anyone can embiggen me any time they want.
        
             | emptybits wrote:
             | All words in use today were made up at some point and then
             | accepted through popular use. Merriam-Webster accepted this
             | one into their dictionary some years ago.[1]
             | 
             | And Dictionary.com acknowledges it may have been published
             | previously in 1884 by C.A. Ward as an example of a
             | barbarous verb.[2][3]
             | 
             | [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/embiggen
             | 
             | [2] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/embiggen
             | 
             | [3] https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-
             | abstract/s6-X/242/135/43...
        
             | chungy wrote:
             | You understood the meaning well enough, which is the
             | purpose of a word. Perhaps you need to embiggen your
             | perspective.
        
             | throwanem wrote:
             | It's a perfectly cromulent word.
        
             | sorokod wrote:
             | In the _same_ episode as that other word - amazing
        
               | rzzzt wrote:
               | Me fail English? That's unpossible!
        
         | TimTheTinker wrote:
         | I tried Iosevka but it felt too much like the bitmap ROM fonts
         | on old computers and terminals. All those fonts were a little
         | too pixel-dense.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | That may be why it -- and Envy Code R -- are the only
           | "modern" monospace fonts I can stand for very long.
           | Everything else just looks like IBM Letter Gothic, or some
           | other typewriter vendor's substitute for Letter Gothic. Hence
           | why I use bitmap or bitmap-like fonts for terminals.
        
       | samwillis wrote:
       | I really don't get the current trend of font ligatures for things
       | such as !=. It seems to me you loose the fundamental structure of
       | the code. I get it looks good in screen shots on Twitter but when
       | I tried a font with them it just seems to make me have to pause
       | and think more.
       | 
       | What have others experience been?
        
         | twblalock wrote:
         | The ligatures are hipsterism and it needs to stop. I've never
         | seen it happen in a professional setting.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | Agree with you, tried it a couple of times and found it more
         | distracting than anything. One gripe is seeing one character,
         | hitting backspace and instead of removing one character, it
         | changes to another character rather than deletes it ("[?]" ->
         | hitting backspace expecting "" but instead seeing "!" now).
        
         | mmgutz wrote:
         | '===' and '==' in JavaScript code were too similar. Maybe
         | that's been addressed by different glyphs in other fonts, but
         | that was enough to say no.
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | I love ligatures. I find that well crafted ones make code look
         | more coherent without detracting in any way from the structure
         | (unlike proportional fonts which I abhor).
         | 
         | They're also very useful for languages which have operators
         | which are easy to confuse, like the triple equal of PHP and JS
         | (in which case having a ligature that's really distinct from
         | the double equal is very convenient).
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | Monospace font on HN seems to do good enough, at least for
           | me, or you think these are too similar as well?
           | ==
           | 
           | vs                   ===
           | 
           | On my machine(s), the difference is quite obvious, with the
           | space in-between each equal sign and all.
        
         | neilpanchal wrote:
         | We wrote extensively about ligatures, pros and cons:
         | https://berkeleygraphics.com/public-affairs/bulletins/BT-001...
         | 
         | Personally, I generally agree with you - ligatures add a layer
         | of ambiguity. Toyed around with the idea of "precision
         | ligatures", but it only works a subset of ligatures.
         | 
         | It's important to keep in mind that ligatures are at the
         | presentation layer, i.e. when the glyphs are drawn. You can
         | still copy and paste the text, underlying representation is
         | still individual chars. Also, ligatures are optional, so why
         | not; a lot of people _love_ them.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | c0l0 wrote:
         | Yes!! I would _so_ like to have a fontconfig option to just
         | disable ligatures altogether, but afaik, one would have to
         | enumerate ALL fonts that one would like to disable them for in
         | the config file - and that 's not feasible. So I mostly live
         | with it, and shake my fist in helpless anger whenever
         | somethings f_cks up my otherwise beautifully monospaced flow
         | with this most damned misfeature of digital typesetting.
        
         | Finnucane wrote:
         | It seems like a little bit weird to have ligatures in a
         | monospaced font. The whole reason ligatures exist is so that
         | bits of letterforms in closely-spaced type don't crash. That
         | shouldn't happen in a monospace font. If you're just changing
         | the space so that two characters are grouped as a kind of unit,
         | that to me defeats the purpose of using monospace to begin
         | with.
        
         | okramcivokram wrote:
         | I love them and use them everywhere I can, mostly with JS/TS. I
         | find the code displayed with ligatures more readable, and the
         | only time I notice any overhead is when modifying === to !== or
         | back, when I have to remember that I have to change only the
         | initial character. Having => as arrows instead of `equals+more
         | than` is enough of improvement, for me, that I keep using them,
         | even without all other tiny tweaks that they give you.
         | 
         | I used to use "Fira Code", but then I've migrated to "JetBrains
         | Mono" everywhere.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | You really have to use a font for a few days before you can judge
       | it.
       | 
       | I personally use Iosevka, but it took some time to get used to.
        
       | rwalle wrote:
       | > I've just finished setting up a new Mac (14" MBP, M2 Pro, 32G,
       | 4T)
       | 
       | I am curious what processor, RAM or storage size have anything to
       | do with this article.
        
         | satysin wrote:
         | It isn't important to the article but whenever someone writes
         | an article about doing something new/different because "I got a
         | new computer" the first comment is always "what computer did
         | you get?"
         | 
         | I guess the author knows this and so pre-empted the question
         | and decided to just answer it before anyone asks (although
         | someone will no doubt still ask).
        
         | fredoliveira wrote:
         | Not sure the obvious needs to be stated, but it feels totally
         | up to the author to add any detail they like. And perhaps
         | frequent readers are interested in the tools the author uses
         | besides their programming font?
        
       | montroser wrote:
       | Of his existing incumbent choice, Inconsolata, the author says:
       | 
       | > Unfortunately I am failing to find the words to explain why
       | this pleases my eyes so much; a screenful of it makes me happy.
       | 
       | One theory about why would be that he has been looking at it day
       | in and day out for years, and we tend to think that things we are
       | more familiar with are more beautiful.
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
        
         | markdoubleyou wrote:
         | This describes me. Every couple of years I read an article like
         | this, download a handful of monospaced fonts, and try to use
         | each one for at least an hour. Inevitably, every one of them
         | has some little problem that rubs me the wrong way, and I go
         | back to my old standby: Consolas, the dad jeans of programming
         | fonts. I've been using it for 15 years, and I think I'm doomed
         | to use it for the rest of my career.
        
       | sfpotter wrote:
       | Monaco until the day I die.
        
       | Arainach wrote:
       | This is a nice overview. I don't share the author's intense
       | distaste for serifs. In my search I ended up on Cascadia Code,
       | which wasn't part of this comparison:
       | https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code
        
         | nwah1 wrote:
         | Yes, this one is in the same top tier along with Fira, Hack,
         | JetBrains, and Inconsolata.
        
       | themadsens wrote:
       | I swear by "Monaco Nerd Mono"
       | 
       | It was a revelation to discover "Monaco" when I first got started
       | on the mac. So casual yet stylish and refined.
        
       | fuzzy2 wrote:
       | And now for the comparison on 96(-ish) PPI screens...! I find
       | that many more recent fonts simply do not look good on those.
       | Some are even outright terrible, glitching all over the place
       | with subpixel rendering.
        
       | amake wrote:
       | Oh boy time for this again:
       | 
       | > To all the people complaining about how they don't like
       | ligatures:
       | 
       | > Nobody cares. If you don't like them, then don't use them. They
       | are optional.
       | 
       | > Lots of people like them. Let people like things.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34589338
        
       | frob wrote:
       | Years ago I fell in love with Anonymous Pro. Everything seems to
       | fit just right. I've never had an issue wondering which character
       | is which nor have I run into missing common characters.
       | 
       | https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
        
       | mortenjorck wrote:
       | Like the author, I always thought IBM's Plex Mono had a bit too
       | much character for a UI font, but I'm a big fan of IA's
       | modifications: https://github.com/iaolo/iA-
       | Fonts/tree/master/iA%20Writer%20...
       | 
       | Part of the project are some interesting duospace and quad-space
       | versions that I probably wouldn't use for code, but are great for
       | editing general text.
        
       | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
       | If you are willing to entertain non free options: MonoLisa is a
       | pretty good font and you can customize which ligatures you are
       | willing to entertain. (I'm basically at zero)
        
       | ilyagr wrote:
       | I wish the article mentioned Fira Mono, which is the same as Fira
       | Code but without the ligatures.
        
       | mafuyu wrote:
       | For my mono font, I converted the Atkinson Hyperlegible[0] font
       | into mono, and have been using it as my terminal and editor font
       | for over a year now. It's pretty janky, but it's surprisingly
       | lasted longer than many of the other fonts I've tried over the
       | years.
       | 
       | If you want to try it: https://github.com/Hylian/atkinson-
       | monolegible
       | 
       | [0]: https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont
        
       | jonhohle wrote:
       | I'm still enamored with Monaco after all this time. It's fun and
       | legible. It has bitmap and vector variants. Whenever I search for
       | a new monospaced font, I always think: but it isn't Monaco!
        
         | TheRealDunkirk wrote:
         | You can pry Monaco out of my cold, dead hands. It reminds me of
         | the old "rock" or "t" font on Linux, which someone helped me
         | re-find here:
         | https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/226593/where-
         | can-i-....)
         | 
         | Unfortunately, I've tried using a version of Monaco on Windows,
         | and whatever version I downloaded just doesn't... quite...
         | render just right. So I stick with Droid Sans Mono on that
         | _other_ OS.
        
       | amacbride wrote:
       | As a traditionalist, I swear by good ol' X11 "fixed" (6x13) --
       | great density and legibility, with pretty much any glyph one
       | would want.
       | 
       | https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html
        
       | fictorial wrote:
       | I fell in love with Recursive (Casual Mono). To me, it's the
       | perfect blend of slightly casual, slightly serif-ish, and not too
       | skinny. https://recursive.design Screenshot:
       | https://freeimage.host/i/HE6AFfV
        
       | qbasic_forever wrote:
       | I thought it would be silly or I would hate it, but the comic
       | sans like nature of Fantasque Sans Mono really surprised me and
       | worked well for coding/IDE use (especially in Python):
       | https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans
        
         | otterpro wrote:
         | Yes, my favorite font for text editing. Not too unprofessional
         | like comics-san but not dull/sterile like most mono fonts. Not
         | sure why, but it has sort of an artistic personality, if I
         | could describe it. Only thing I dislike is the "k" so I use the
         | non-loop version.
        
         | ricardobeat wrote:
         | Looks similar to Monaco (Mac OS's default for monospace). The
         | slight irregularities make it more comfortable to read vs more
         | geometrical shapes.
        
       | numbsafari wrote:
       | Our terminals in college were configured with monofur, and it's
       | whimsical nature is something I've always been partial to:
       | 
       | https://www.dafont.com/monofur.font
        
       | rizenfrmtheash wrote:
       | I tried a couple Mono Fonts and found them all kinda samey.
       | 
       | I ended up seeing a post here for Berkeley Mono, a paid font, and
       | I noticed in particular that it was incredibly readable compared
       | to other mono fonts I was using, so much so that I've zoomed out
       | one level on VS Code and iTerm and have similar readability as
       | before.
       | 
       | It was the first font I paid for, and I was quite happy with it.
       | 
       | https://berkeleygraphics.com/typefaces/berkeley-mono/
        
         | replwoacause wrote:
         | I too have been following the Berkeley Mono font, and I think
         | their website and promo materials are all very well designed.
         | However, I tried the trial version of the font and found the
         | kerning odd and unnatural seeming.
        
           | systemvoltage wrote:
           | Concept of kerning doesn't make sense in monospaced fonts.
           | You can't adjust side bearings and create kerning pairs.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | steve_adams_86 wrote:
         | I felt weird buying Berkeley but I'm very happy with it as
         | well. I knew I liked it when I got the trial and yet I felt
         | this aversion to paying for a font for several weeks. Then it
         | dawned on me: I was depriving myself of enjoying someone's hard
         | work because I didn't want to spend a fairly small amount of
         | money for a thing I'd use for my work every day. Sort of an
         | everyone loses situation. I can be bizarrely cheap, and it's
         | kind of embarrassing when I break it down. I lose time and
         | money to my irrational cheapness.
         | 
         | Berkeley's sharpness and legibility has been unmatched for me
         | and I think that's what draws me to it so much. I know others
         | will say it's not sharp or legible, and it's a totally personal
         | thing. We get good at reading on different screens with
         | different characters, and we're gradually trained to see in
         | different ways. For me, Berkeley absolutely nails it.
        
       | macintux wrote:
       | I switched to Iosevka for both iTerm and Emacs several years ago
       | and have been pretty happy with the added horizontal density. My
       | only real complaint is that Emacs behaves a bit weirdly when
       | lines exceed the buffer width, but I haven't tried switching back
       | to a "normal" typeface to confirm that it's Iosevka's fault.
        
       | deckard1 wrote:
       | > Uh, no, it smells of mainframes. Look at some of those 90deg
       | serifs, right out of the 1950's.
       | 
       | maybe that's why I like IBM Plex Mono so much. My go-to font has
       | always been DejaVu Sans and before that Bitstream Vera Sans,
       | which are pretty much the same font. But I like IBM Plex after
       | using it for awhile.
       | 
       | I'm not that anal about serifs or whatnot. But a font has to
       | "feel" right with a page of code open. And the very minimum they
       | have to get the O (letter "O") vs. 0 (number zero) right as well
       | as I (letter "I") vs. 1 (number one). If you can't get that right
       | then it's a useless coding font.
        
       | WatchDog wrote:
       | The screenshots look really poorly compressed and noisy, not
       | great for comparing fonts.
        
         | Narishma wrote:
         | You can click them to get the full version.
        
       | latchkey wrote:
       | JetBrains Mono is my choice. I tried switching between a bunch of
       | them and always came back to it. They've done a great job.
        
         | seanw444 wrote:
         | It looks good, and is surprisingly readable when shrunk down a
         | bunch. It's a fantastic quick-setup font. I only don't use it
         | as my main font anymore because I have a very personalized
         | Iosevka build. But that takes time and motivation to do (and a
         | mind-blowing amount of RAM).
        
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       (page generated 2023-02-13 23:00 UTC)