ProFont: The ultimate programming font.

http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/

by gus_massa • 18 years ago

34 37 18 years ago

tobias-jung.de

arthurk• 18 years ago

Jeff Atwood wrote about programming fonts some time ago: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html

Don't miss the comments!

lbolognini• 18 years ago

LOL, looks like crap. Bitstream Vera Mono FTW!

dhotson• 18 years ago

I used to love Bitstream Vera Mono. It's pretty nice.

Although, recently I've switched to Liberation Mono as my monospace weapon of choice.. I'd certainly recommend it.

scott_s• 18 years ago

I use Liberation Mono on Linux, but Consolas on Windows. I've found that the different platforms don't display each other's fonts as nicely.

henning• 18 years ago

In the past when the only displays I had access to were relatively low-res (1280x1024) I used ProFont a lot. It's a good font, didn't become bothersome after hours of Emacs work.

But, I use Consolas now on Windows.

ajross• 18 years ago

Agreed, I don't know what the author is smoking. But then, there's no accounting for taste.

I also use Vera Mono in emacs, and like it a lot. I really feel for the poor folks still using courier (which-way-does-that-quote-go-and-is-that-a-curly-or-paren?) as a code font.

To be fair, though, the linked font is a bitmap, not a vector font. So maybe a better comparison might be to the X11 9x15 or 10x20 fonts, both of which I spent years staring at and like very much.

ashleyw• 18 years ago

Totally, and if you use Textmate (for ruby), the theme used in Railscasts is the ultimate theme if you ask me:

http://railscasts.com/about

Looks amazing with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono!

alexstaubo• 18 years ago

After going through Courier New, Profont, Consolas, Monaco etc., my favourite programming font ended up being Panic Sans, which comes with Coda, a Mac IDE that I don't use. For developers whose point size of preference hovers closer to 12 points than 6, it's perfect. Sample: http://purefiction.net/paste/panicsans.png

dchest• 18 years ago

Inconsolata FTW!

ricree• 18 years ago

I'm currently using Dina, and to date it has been the best programming font I've used.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/

MrSomeone• 18 years ago

Same here. Since switching to Dina I haven't found another font that I could stare at all day.

rkowalick• 18 years ago

I prefer terminus for pretty much everything:

http://bp3.blogger.com/_YFgpCPoV-8g/RzMRmS_pCVI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/...

markbao• 18 years ago

Panic Sans FTW. (a modified version of Bitstream Vera Sans distributed with Coda.)

http://www.umbrae.net/files/panicsans.png | http://www.command-tab.com/images/programming/perfect_font/p...

nonrecursive2• 18 years ago

That looks nice, thanks for pointing it out.

jeffmueller• 18 years ago

I second this recommendation. Panic Sans is about as good as it gets.

anewaccountname• 18 years ago

What are the differences between it and Bitstream? I don't see 'em

duane• 18 years ago

Inconsolata. Hands down.

Volt• 18 years ago

So true.

http://nullstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/inconsolata....

(Thanks, Google Images)

briansmith• 18 years ago

I prefer Consolas and then Andale Mono.

truebosko• 18 years ago

Yah this. The one linked looks like ass.

tokipin• 18 years ago

Andale Mono for me. it's very "lightweight" and beautiful. i would use Courier New generally, but after using Andale, it's surprising how heavy and hard to parse Courier is

lsb• 18 years ago

That's a bitmap font, which is really good for displays where pixels are large, but which is terrible for displays where pixels are tiny (like, say, the iPod Touch or something). Displays are getting denser, so the way to go is vector-based, not bitmapped.

Here's an interesting thought: you need to make the glyphs as different to each other as you can, for a given language model. Would a font for Lisp be different than a font for Ruby? Could you make an emacs plugin that changed lettershapes based on character probabilities?

zenspider• 18 years ago

aye. back when I was coding on a 9 inch B&W screen with bitmapped everything, it was a great font to use. damn crisp and non-ambiguous at 9pt.

now I use deja vu sans, which is a fork of bitstream vera sans with full unicode.

icey• 18 years ago

Claiming any font is the "ultimate" programming font is akin to claiming "blue" is the ultimate color, or "strawberry" is the ultimate flavor of ice cream.

rbanffy4• 18 years ago

Or thet HN is the ultimate Digg.

We appear to be entering very dangerous waters.

lowdown• 18 years ago

This font is so tiny at 1920x1200. It also has odd brackets when editing XML.

I'm a big fan of ProggyClean and Pragmata.

kilowatt• 18 years ago

Definitely. Pixel fonts are past their prime on a 24" LCD.

Erf• 18 years ago

I find ProggySquare to be slightly more readable, partly because of the additional empty space taken up by letters like A

nonrecursive2• 18 years ago

This is a little off topic, but I loved the font in Konsole. And I just freaking loved Konsole, but haven't been able to get working for OS X. Has anyone here been able to?

ahpeeyem• 18 years ago

have you tried iTerm on OSX? It's rad.

http://iterm.sourceforge.net/

rbanffy4• 18 years ago

BTW, does anyone here knows what slightly serifed font Red Hat used for their terminal when they introduced the Bluecurve visuals?

There are days I want my terminals with a slightly warmer font than a sans-serif one.

rbanffy4• 18 years ago

If a kind soul can help, I found a screenshot where it appears.

http://osdir.com/screenshots/fedoracore3test2/87.gif

hassy• 18 years ago

That's Luxi Mono.

SamReidHughes• 18 years ago

No, Bikeshed Sans is the ultimate font.

bkudria• 18 years ago

lol! you're so funny!

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Wow the Mac version is distributed as a .sit... old school. I despise anyone who knowingly distributes files as Stuffit archives any more, but this just seems to have not been updated since the days of Mac OS 9.

ProFont: The ultimate programming font.

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