[HN Gopher] Coding Font Selection 'Tournament'
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Coding Font Selection 'Tournament'
Author : tosh
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-12-27 07:51 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (daringfireball.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (daringfireball.net)
| MrCharismatist wrote:
| My preferred font, Hack, made it to the final four before losing
| on a toss up. IBM Plex Mono won and is pretty damn close.
| charrondev wrote:
| IBM plex mono also won out for me, although I've been using
| Fira Code for ages.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| The deal-breaker with Hack, for me, is its curly quotes--they
| are just far too indistinct. A lot of monospace fonts make this
| mistake, although there's a pleasing number featured here that
| don't.
| c-hendricks wrote:
| I don't think this was always owned by Typogram
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29010443
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29028660
|
| And to bypass the blogspam: https://www.codingfont.com/
| ksec wrote:
| The Site is very slow on my Safari 17.6, Chrome and Firefox
| worked much better.
| chin7an wrote:
| Looking at their about[0] page, it seems like Typogram is a
| company started by the person who also created Coding Font.
| That might explain the "by Typogram" label.
|
| [0] https://typogram.co/blog/about-us/
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| PT Mono for me
| macintux wrote:
| That's where I ended up as well. Boring but clean.
| iamkoch wrote:
| Fira Code, which I've been using for years anyway! I found
| disproportionate glee in picking my usual font
| rcarmo wrote:
| Same here. I've never felt tempted to use another font since I
| adopted it--well, except for the Nerd Font variant, of course.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Fira Mono.
|
| I saw that some of the fonts had a ligature for === making it a
| long congruence sign instead of three equals signs, and I
| avoided those like the plague.
| JD557 wrote:
| Same.
|
| I was surprised that both Fira Code and Fira Mono were options,
| that was a bit cheeky.
| variadix wrote:
| SF Mono is by far my favorite, unfortunate it can't be included
| It can be extracted from the apple dev fonts dmg if you want to
| use it in your editor on a non-OSX platform
| mometsi wrote:
| You may gaze upon SF Mono only in conjunction with the APPLE
| DEVELOPER TOOLS; any unauthorized viewing will melt your
| eyeballs.
|
| Here's the location of the Ark, for those still curious:
|
| https://github.com/thelioncape/San-Francisco-family/tree/mas...
| Kuraj wrote:
| The link to the tournament looks so much like a header (which I
| assumed would just be a permalink to the blog post that I am
| reading) that I spent a full minute looking for it
| anothernewdude wrote:
| Thank you!
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think this is a hold-out from old-school blogging, where each
| post would have a url that was often an external link. Feeds
| often reinforced this, favouring the external link over the
| 'blog post permalink' (I guess since, who would care about that
| when they already have the full text content?).
|
| On the site's home page, the posts include a "" link which
| points to the post itself. I'm guessing the reason the posts
| don't link to themselves is another hold-out from the old-
| school: a page linking to itself was typically considered bad
| practice.
| IceDane wrote:
| I had to come here to see if anyone else was dumbfounded. The
| site is just generally awful to read.
| superfish wrote:
| I ended looking for the link then clicking the apparently first
| link "Via Jason Snell". In that page the link to the tournament
| is _also_ the header (which I did not notice). The last
| paragraph on that page had a link to the tournament and that's
| what I ended up clicking. I'm glad I'm not the only one
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Not sure if anyone is like me but I don't have a favourite. In
| fact, no matter how much I love a font, I have to switch it every
| few months or I get sick of it.
| koromak wrote:
| Its so dependent on font size (or more accurately PPI) that its
| hard to pick. On my current monitor my favorite Berkely Mono
| looks thin and hard to read unless I bump up the size higher than
| I'd like. But drag it over to a Retina screen and it looks
| fantastic.
| layer8 wrote:
| Yes, most (if not all) new fonts nowadays seem to assume (very)
| high DPI and also have no hinting for low DPI. Every time I
| check a font that is praised here, it looks terrible at small
| point sizes.
| K0nserv wrote:
| Jetbrains Mono and Fira Code made it to the run off, but Fira won
| out in the end. Having used Fira for many years, at least I'm
| consistent.
| jeron wrote:
| you guys don't code in comic sans?
| ryukoposting wrote:
| https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/
| a3c9 wrote:
| And while it's not free, there's also Comic Code:
| https://tosche.net/fonts/comic-code
| prmoustache wrote:
| I use comic mono currently but switch on a semi regular basis
| with fira code and jetbrains mono depending on mood.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| This should have an option to allow using system fonts (e.g.
| Consolas) to replace the proposed garbage fonts (such as
| https://www.codingfont.com/MajorMonoDisplay ).
| mometsi wrote:
| Less conveniently, you can use your browser to inspect the code
| panel and change its font to whatever you like.
| spockswrench wrote:
| The white on grey text on this site is absolutely brutal on my
| eyes. I agree that Source Code Pro is a great coding font though.
| ketedrum wrote:
| Use a dark mode extension like this one on FF:
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-mode-
| by-.... Works well with HN
| spockswrench wrote:
| Thanks, I like dark mode but HN in its natural state is
| actually super readable for me (plus I'm used to it).
| LVB wrote:
| I've never understood how John Gruber presents himself as a
| connoisseur of fine UX and typography, and then for decades
| publishes a bland, often difficult-to-read site.
| mcallaster wrote:
| Victor Mono, an absolute pleasure to use. Though Jetbrains Mono
| seems to give it a run for its money. The deciding factor seems
| to be the italic cursive font. Just enough differentiation to
| really set comments apart from the meat of the code.
| davidpfarrell wrote:
| Roboto Mono for me - Off to see if its on NerdFonts ...
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Funny, it gave me Roboto Mono, a font I've never used. I use
| whatever VS Code's default is, or IBM Plex Mono with Fira Code's
| ligatures when I decide to stop being lazy and go set a font. The
| differences between most fonts don't bother me much.
| treetalker wrote:
| I'm a litigator and a fan of IBM Plex Mono and Plex Sans for my
| drafting!
|
| (I draft and typeset my filings separately; IBM Plex would
| probably be viewed with disfavor in court, simply because it
| doesn't look like Times New Roman. I push the envelope by using
| Matthew Butterick's Equity family for that.)
|
| The IBM Plex family is super, both on screen and in print --
| particularly for free! Very legible and well thought out.
|
| The other typeface I prefer for my drafting is Atkinson
| Hyperlegible (also free).
| ashton314 wrote:
| Another MB fonts enjoyer! I like how MB designed Equity
| _specifically_ to be metric-compatible with Times New Roman.
| Have you ever been called out for using it?
| treetalker wrote:
| I see you are a person of culture! :-)
|
| Never. In state court most people default to TNR and are
| blind to typography, so no one even notices. In federal, my
| opponents are usually the same way but many judges at least
| have the sense to use Palatino or something Century-like
| instead of TNR.
|
| In state court appeals, we're required to use 14-point of
| either Arial or Bookman Old Style (double-spaced). D-: My
| eyes would bleed if I drafted with that typesetting -- it's
| horrid.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Because IBM Plex Sans JP exists I use the IBM Plex fonts. It's
| a whole lot easier than trying to pick fonts that work well
| together with a Japanese font. And IBM Plex looks fairly nice,
| so that helps.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Fira Code, Inconsolata and IBM Plex Mono (using now for the last
| few years) are my favorites. After playing the game, it gave me
| Noto Sans Mono
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| It doesn't include the actual best coding font
| https://www.dafont.com/pointfree.font
| ctippett wrote:
| In a similar fashion, there's Comic Mono.
|
| https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Yeah, but Pointfree is the superior and more authentic
| monospaced Comic Sans descendant, because Comic Mono has
| serifs and overly regular strokes.
| meew0 wrote:
| I wish there was a version of this for proportional fonts as
| well. I never use monospace fonts for coding anymore if I can
| avoid it, but I'm still in search of the "perfect" proportional
| coding font.
| pfg_ wrote:
| My favourite is Verdana and I haven't found anything else that
| feels similar
| brandonfro wrote:
| Not that anyone asked, but after using and enjoying Inconsolata
| for the last decade I've come to really love Sohne Mono in the
| last few months.
|
| Ref: https://klim.co.nz/retail-fonts/soehne-mono/
| dotancohen wrote:
| > after using and enjoying Inconsolata for the last decade
|
| Biggus Dickus?
| kylecazar wrote:
| You're thinking Incontinentia
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Well, it is a pretty nonsensical name for a font. It
| appears to mean "unconsoled", which (a) has no valid
| semantics as applied to a font, since fonts don't have
| thoughts, moods, or feelings; and (b) has a very negative
| valence - being unconsoled is a bad thing.
| Hasu wrote:
| Inconsolata was inspired by and named after Microsoft's
| Consolas font, which was presumably so named as it was
| meant for the console.
| benreesman wrote:
| Haha is using Inconsolata a flex?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Even as someone who has bought many fonts for coding, including
| Pragmata Pro, Operator and others (i.e. not cheap ones), I was
| blown away that for just the Mono weights in regular and italic
| is _nine hundred and sixty_ dollars.
|
| Shame, I was curious about trying it. Operator and Pragmata go
| for $199.
|
| It also irks me that I cannot buy a single user license for
| Sohne, but a minimum of a 5 user license.
| JusticeJuice wrote:
| Individual personal users just aren't type foundaries like
| Klim's target market. They want to land large businesses who
| use their typefaces as their dedicated brand font - and the
| pricing reflects that potential value.
|
| I agree though that they've missed out on an opportunity to
| land individual personal use. They've just slapped their
| standard license on it, and didn't think much about it.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| My favorites are PT Mono (Mac native), Commit Mono and GNU
| Unifont (works well on smaller screens).
| ksec wrote:
| Interesting, I ended up with Hack vs Source Code Pro twice and
| still picked Hack.
|
| The site dont work very well with Safari 17.6.
| pier25 wrote:
| Noto Sans for me
| ChristopherDrum wrote:
| I became an Iosevka convert this year. If there are things about
| it you don't like, you can likely build a custom variant that
| fixes those things. There are 54 variants for the zero character,
| for example. Pick your poison. https://typeof.net/Iosevka/
| soneca wrote:
| I use it for a few years already. It is not an option in this
| game, right?
|
| I got Nanum Gothic Coding, but couldn't find a good site to
| compare it with Iosevka side by side to check if they are
| similar
| cotti wrote:
| I mean, if it were, it would always win...
| extr wrote:
| Yeah I find Iosevka extremely readable and love how narrow it
| is. Basically the only monospace font I use.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I really like using Light for coding and Extra light weights
| for comments. It's a fantastic font.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| I like the build of Iosevka that the Zed editor people made,
| called Zed Mono. It's hosted on github [0] but there are no
| screenshots. You can see kind of how it looks in the
| screenshots of their editor on their website though [1]
|
| 0: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed-fonts/releases
|
| 1: https://zed.dev/
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Though it's not actually a vector font, I've always liked the
| aesthetics of Fixedsys. And I still do.
| efitz wrote:
| No tournament is needed. Everyone knows that Source Code Pro is
| the best coding font.
| nickradford wrote:
| I've done this before and just did it again to see if my tastes
| have changed, and to no personal surprise, I landed on JetBrains
| Mono again
| bitwize wrote:
| The best monospace font for me for coding and terminals is Atari
| ST 8x16 System Font.
|
| But Iosevka Term works for me the best of all the non-pixel fonts
| out there.
| leansensei wrote:
| Victor Mono all the way!
| nurumaik wrote:
| Once I discovered monaspace font family, I never looked back
|
| https://monaspace.githubnext.com/
| macleginn wrote:
| Closer to the end the fonts became well nigh indistinguishable
| for me. I ended up with Roboto Mono but would probably be unable
| to distinguish it from close contenders on blind testing.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Is there any place that compiles all results? A leader board?
| efortis wrote:
| Unpopular opinion, Monospace fonts are slower to read.
|
| Since I mostly code in camelCase, and I don't like it, I modified
| this proportional font with some padding before capital letters
| and made the space char much longer
| https://github.com/ericfortis/verdanacamel
|
| The caveat is that it doesn't tabular align lines, but I think
| that's something IDEs should render for us.
| simondotau wrote:
| Programming in variable spaced fonts is weird but
| understandable. Programming in a font which actively lies to
| you about the presence or absence of spaces is batshit crazy.
|
| I agree with you about tabular alignment though. I do think
| it's stupid that "readable" code involves emulating desktop
| publishing metaphors with arbitrary numbers of spaces.
| efortis wrote:
| It is not lying, it's not creating a space, it is padding
| capital letters. After a few hours they are not confusing. At
| any rate, that's a workaround for camel casing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Monospace fonts are slower to read_
|
| Based on what?
|
| I don't think reading speed has ever been the limiting factor
| for me when reading code. My comprehension is always much
| slower.
|
| On the other hand, monospace fonts are vastly clearer. Exact
| punctuation is easier to see. And, obviously, you can align
| things however you want.
| efortis wrote:
| For the most part the speed gain of that font comes from the
| left padding on the capitals. But proportional fonts are
| faster to read allegedly because of the shape words forms. At
| any rate, before seeing that study I was anecdotally
| convinced.
|
| Although speed is not a limiting factor, the little extra
| effort it takes to read monospace is taxing. In other words,
| not having to focus on the words with more deliberation helps
| on long days.
|
| For the clarity, I also modified some punctuation glyphs. For
| instance, the '!' is larger.
|
| And tabular alignment is something IDE could make for us.
| There are some DSLs that have tables, IntelliJ has them.
| efortis wrote:
| I can't explain why they are faster but I can demonstrate
| it. I think the best example is putting two man pages with
| different fonts side by side.
| rererereferred wrote:
| I don't like the spaces inside the camelCase but I do think
| spacing should be something IDEs fix for you, say for example a
| project uses 2 space indentation and you like 4, the IDE should
| be able to render virtual spaces without source changes.
|
| Same for multiline strings, it should be able to render the
| whole block aligned to the start of the string without extra
| padding in the other lines.
| xigoi wrote:
| I find proportional fonts terrible for coding because they make
| subtle differences in punctuation hard to see, suh as " versus
| '' or ... versus ... .
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It doesn't turn out to be problem in progress. Even having I
| and l look the same isn't something that I ever need to think
| about.
| efortis wrote:
| I l | 1
|
| I once had trouble with a variable named 'l' because I
| thought it was a pipe (bitwise or in js)
| efortis wrote:
| Ligatures are not particular to proportional fonts. For
| example, Hasklig has a few handy ones.
| leni536 wrote:
| Doesn't have DejaVu Sans Mono, which would be a better contender
| than the obviously garbage fonts. I got Source Code Pro as the
| winner, which I think is very similar.
| GavinAnderegg wrote:
| I ran this early last year when I was doing another coding
| typeface overview. I picked "Hack", and wrote about it here:
| https://anderegg.ca/2023/02/16/typeface-tournament
|
| This time I ran it and got "DM Mono", which went neck-and-neck
| against Hack. I'm not sure this was in the lineup last time, but
| it's a really nice typeface!
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Did the game for fun and ended up with Inconsolata. The word
| "coding" should have been obvious by itself but no bitmap font?
| Really? Terminus or SGI screen over any of these, even with high
| DPI.
|
| Also, the game simply didn't work on Firefox, here.
| lukeholder wrote:
| I LOVE Berkeley Mono
|
| https://usgraphics.com/products/berkeley-mono
| graboid wrote:
| Me too. If anyone likes that font but doesn't want to spend so
| much money, I found SF Mono and CommitMono to be kind of
| similar looking.
| whalesalad wrote:
| The order website and compiler are so neat.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Interesting, got font I never even heard of: DM Mono. I guess
| I'll try it.
|
| Besides no proprietary fonts (I use Cascadia Code currently...
| actually this is also open, maybe only google font fonts?), some
| other things I wish were different:
|
| 1. Some alternative to the one-strike tournament. I got Space
| Mono vs Oxygen Mono in the first round, and liked both of those a
| lot more than most others. Oxygen won, but Space would have won
| against most other fonts.
|
| 2. Independent sizes. I don't like tiny fonts (HN is at 220% zoom
| for me), some of these fonts are very small, so to properly
| compare e.g. Inconsolata with most other fonts, I'd have
| Inconsolata at 18 while my default was 17.
| baalimago wrote:
| I use comic shanns mono [0] for both printscreen annotations and
| in neovim with the hopes of subtly trolling whoever I'm sharing
| screen with.
|
| For three years have I now suffered, with 0 reaction. Three
| years. I haven't lost faith though... one day, someone will say
| "what the hell kind of font is that? why would you do that?", and
| I will chuckle.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/jesusmgg/comic-shanns-mono
| fortydegrees wrote:
| I appreciate your pursuit of this artistic endeavour. Truly
| great art is always the product of great personal sacrifice.
|
| That said, it does make me wonder about two alternative
| approaches:
|
| A) When a screenshot is detected, change the font, produce the
| screenshot and then change it back. You could probably do this
| on a per-application basis with something like AutoHotKey, or
| there's probably a deeper way of doing it on the OS-level.
|
| B) Use the magic of AI. Given it's monospaced, you could
| probably modify an image model to replace the relevant font of
| the screenshot.
|
| Of course, these approaches may compromise your artistic
| integrity.
| the_other wrote:
| I use Comic Mono [0]. I think it took about a year before
| someone asked if I was coding in Comic Sans.
|
| I honestly love it. It's round and cheerful, and suits my
| crappy vision quite well.
|
| [0]: https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/
| knallfrosch wrote:
| Been using it for years now, ever since I discovered it.
| Obviously I use a version with ligatures mixed in:
|
| https://github.com/wayou/comic-mono-font
|
| I've tested all Ubuntu/MacOS/Windows Fonts, as well as
| Operator Mono, Fira Code and most of the other famed fonts.
|
| But Comic Mono is one hell of a drug. It's beautiful and
| legible.
| mushufasa wrote:
| Monaco, which used to be the default font for MacOs, is my
| favorite. And it is a cousin of comic sans. It was designed by
| Susan Kare, one of the original designers of the Macintosh.
|
| So: plenty professional and serious!
| Arcuru wrote:
| I bought and use Comic Code [1] and use it as my main coding
| font. I actually really like it.
|
| I work from home and only my wife has noticed...she thinks I'm
| crazy.
|
| [1] https://tosche.net/fonts/comic-code
| lelandfe wrote:
| As a typography dork who annoys friends by pointing out fonts
| all the time, it saddens me I am not your coworker to fulfill
| this long con. Much respect.
| feketegy wrote:
| Without Comic Sans
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynliPsRmmcQ) the world would
| be a worse place.
| fourfour3 wrote:
| I reliably come out of this with Inconsolata. It's not a bad
| font, but I do prefer SF Mono & Monaco - it would be nice if this
| showed them in the tree if they were installed.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| Yes, I would love to know what my runner up was. I
| unintentionally ended up with the same font I currently use,
| Fira Code... at least I'm consistent.
| scotty79 wrote:
| For me it's Inconsolata closely tracked by Ubuntu Mono.
|
| For some reason DejaVu Sans Mono wasn't in the contest.
| hk1337 wrote:
| JetBrains Mono
|
| That's actually what I use and thinking before I even started it.
|
| It seemed like a lot of the fonts were sort of dim looking. I
| like the brighter font because it makes it easier to read.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Ever since I set my text editor to use Bookmania, I have smiled
| every time I open it. Fuck monospace.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Only monospaced fonts get to compete, which is a shame for those
| of us who use proportional programming fonts.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I got Red Hat Mono going through the tournament. The font that I
| actually use, Source Code Pro, got second place. And I have to
| say, these two are so similar that there's basically no reason to
| switch between the two.
| psadauskas wrote:
| It has anonymous, which I used before I switched to my current
| favorite, mononoki https://www.programmingfonts.org/#mononoki
|
| It's also missing the GitHub Monaspace fonts, which I've been
| playing with, but haven't fully switched for my terminal and
| editor.
|
| They should add all the Nerd fonts:
| https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads
| feketegy wrote:
| mononoki is GOAT
| feketegy wrote:
| It's hard to switch away from mononoki, Iosevka comes really
| close, if I spend enough time to full customize it to my liking
| maybe it could become my #1 pick.
| gardenerik wrote:
| Unfortunately, it's missing a lot of commonly used paid fonts
| (Operator, ...), but I understand that it is mostly a licensing
| problem.
|
| For the last couple of years, I am a Cartograph[1] lover. But
| Connary had changed the license pricing this year, making it a
| one of the more expensive coding fonts :(
|
| [1] https://connary.com/fonts/cartograph/
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(page generated 2024-12-31 23:01 UTC)