Top Programming Fonts

http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts/

by fogus • 15 years ago

439 164 15 years ago

hivelogic.com

telemachos• 15 years ago

I love Inconsolata, but there's just one thing about it: the curly quotation marks.

If you have that same quibble, good news: Inconsolata-dz[1]. Inconsolata with straight quotes.

[1] http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-dou...

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

You're right, that is annoying. Thanks for the link.

nickburdick• 15 years ago

Awesome link, I've been using Inconsolata for years and had the exact same issue.

gurraman• 15 years ago

I love the straight quotes, but I'm experiencing increased vertical space between lines in the terminal as well. Seems like the author has the same "problem" judged by the screenshots posted.

mgurlitz• 15 years ago

There's another Inconsolata derivative named "Inconsolata-g" with straight quotes, dotted zeros, and other small fixes to make it a "programmer's font." http://leonardo-m.livejournal.com/77079.html

Ruudjah• 15 years ago

This is why Inconsolata beats every font. Because there's a 'mistake' in it, and it can be fixed because of the licensing. This stuff gets me very excited.

leif• 15 years ago

it's also got pretty poor unicode support, which bugs me just a little

Derbasti2• 15 years ago

I find Droid Sans Mono really good, although it could use better distinction between Zero and Oh.

daviddavis• 15 years ago

Agreed. I use this font in vim at work because (believe or not) it seems to be the sharpest on my crappy LCD monitor at work. I was using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono before though which I love.

Wickk• 15 years ago

+1 for DSM.

I use the solarized vim/terminal color scheme so from syntax highlighting I can tell the difference between the O and 0 but I can see why it would be a problem.

brcrth• 15 years ago

Here's a version with slashed zero (there's also another version with dotted zero from the same author): http://blog.cosmix.org/2009/10/27/a-slashed-zero-droid-sans-...

Derbasti2• 15 years ago

Amazing! Thank you!

wladimir2• 15 years ago

He forgot my favorite programming font, Terminus. It's pretty popular in Linux development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28typeface%29

gnuvince• 15 years ago

Terminus is awesome, it's a shame so many "top programming fonts" forget it.

technomancy• 15 years ago

I switched over to antialiased fonts a while ago, but every so often I feel the urge to go retro and switch back to Terminus for a few weeks.

wging• 15 years ago

Looking at the fonts he did select, it's clear why Terminus gets no mention: it's significantly different aesthetically, with squarer edges and more straight lines, etc., from his preferred fonts.

archangel_one• 15 years ago

But his number 10 is Courier, which he basically says he doesn't like; surely it ranks higher than that. I'd say it's not entirely dissimilar to Proggy as well.

steve___• 15 years ago

I used Terminus for many years. About 18 months ago I switched to gohufont -- http://font.gohu.eu/

A person can't fit quite as much on the screen but I find the extra spacing makes it much easier to read (eg emails).

llimllib• 15 years ago

I've been happy with Mensch: http://robey.lag.net/2010/06/21/mensch-font.html , A font based of Apple's Menlo.

carlosedp• 15 years ago

Very nice font. Just replaced Vera Sans Mono with it on my VIM configuration. Great tip.

drats• 15 years ago

I use Mensch too, but let's not credit Apple too much considering Menlo in turn was a fairly minor tweak of the Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. To do so would be almost as annoying as people claiming Apple created Webkit out of the blue rather than starting from an open source project, or that they created their kernel out of the blue, or their OS tools, or windowing operating systems in general were created by them, or the personal computer or the smart phone or the tablet. Apple is very good at polishing things, at integration, supply chains and marketing; extremely good, and they even have a very good record on fonts - but don't listen to Jobs' story on this or you will think we would still be using the command line for everything - however they get orders of magnitude too much credit when it comes to innovation.

hbrouwer• 15 years ago

I used to use Menlo, now trying Consolas.

john2x• 15 years ago

I tried Consolas on a Mac but it wasn't aligning right. :(

SlyShy• 15 years ago

I like to use Code Envy R: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod... . It's legible at 8pt, which lets me fit big amounts of code even on smaller screens.

rezaprima• 15 years ago

Just nit picking, but your misspelling of Envy Code R (I read it as "envy coder") to Code Envy R gave me a deja-vu. And I found your comment at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287909. You are not alone there, though :)

drtse4• 15 years ago

I'm still using Envy Code R after reading about it on some blog: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod... Perfect for terminal and coding.

kristiandupont2• 15 years ago

I say this every time this discussion comes up but I do feel it bears repeating: I switched away from monospaced a while ago and I am never going back.

I encourage you to try something like Verdana for a week just to see how it feels.

dagw• 15 years ago

Well I've just tried it for 10 minutes, and I have to say it seems to work better that i initially expected/feared. So you might not be as crazy as you sound :)

I might actually give it a few days and see what happens.

seabee• 15 years ago

This will affect you differently depending on what language you use and whether you like to align things in columns. Think of how some people format C functions, with each parameter on a new line aligned at the open paren.

Personally I find that kind of alignment unnecessary and creates too much busywork. Proportional fonts prevent you from even trying. (Unless your editor supports elastic tabstops, but since very few do this is moot.)

FWIW, I program in Georgia, until I find a serif font I like better. EVERYONE comments on it.

kennywinker• 15 years ago

The first few days feel a little weird, but I tried it almost a year ago and now I'm stick in Times New Roman.

I actually mix a bit of monospaced in... I have Xcode make comments monospaced. Which is nice, because it makes them fade to the background a bit.

Karn3• 15 years ago

I've been using Verdana for coding for years, with some modifications. I've changed the parentheses, braces, operators etc. to be more prominent - that makes it just perfect for me.

Edit: screenshot here: http://i.imgur.com/xv5oz.png

xbryanx2• 15 years ago

Oh, nice job making the encapsulating characters extra bold.

roryokane2• 15 years ago

Would you be willing to share your modified font?

Also, what color scheme is that?

sek• 15 years ago

Also interested, standard Verdana in my terminal is unusable. Your screenshot looks awesome.

X-Istence2• 15 years ago

Would you be willing to share your colorscheme?

turbohz2• 15 years ago

My IDE is misconfigured, and for html/css code uses Arial, or some other proportional font.

It's just painful to watch!

The non grid alignment, randomness, just makes it more distracting to me. Perhaps if I was exposed to it for a long er period of time, a week as you suggested, this uneasiness will slowly fade.

But, let me ask you: What's that you find so good about it? More content in less space? Why won't you go back?

dexen2• 15 years ago

I'm with OP on the issue --- proportional font for code. I find it easier to read. It goes out if its way to go out of my way.

Why would proportional font be easier to read? No idea, honestly. May be related to fact I read a lot of non-code (documents and fiction) as well, and those almost always come in proportional fonts.

kristiandupont2• 15 years ago

Aesthetics -- nothing else.

As for the grid alignment, I never make block-style comments and normal indentation works just the same. I am not sure what you mean with "randomness".

jff• 15 years ago

You'll be freed from worrying about structure so much. Why is it painful to see HTML in a proportional font? Your indentation levels will remain the same; are you relying on mono-spaced fonts to lay out tables by hand?

That said, I'm not against using a nice mono font like Anonymous Pro; I used that font in Acme to write the code and thesis for my Master's.

nchlswu• 15 years ago

How's indenting/tabbing handled? "x spaces" or a tab? I'm wondering if you have any funny indenting/tabbing behaviour.

nsfmc3• 15 years ago

There's a few things that i think you're reacting to (i think, because i've had similar feelings, but i could totally be wrong).

The first is that Verdana is really nicely hinted, which means that, unlike most other fonts out there, Verdana has the advantage of always technically looking sharp.

The second is that Verdana is mostly monolinear, like Courier or Andale or any of traditional monospaces, there's only the slightest bit of stroke variation (most of it optical), so you get style but you don't get the distraction (onscreen) of stroke modulation

The third is that most proportional fonts have a comparatively larger pitch, so you get more characters in each line, which is also what you start seeing in 'next gen monospaces' that seem to make better use of their allotted horizontal space (and seem less wonky in general).

The last, and arguably most important, is that almost all proportional fonts (verdana included) have got style. It's hard to emphasize enough that most of the arguments for Consolas or Inconsolata or Liberation or ____ are largely due to the fact that those fonts have an overt aesthetic agenda, which is sometimes not apparent in first-gen monospaces (although, to be fair, they and their brethren are stylized, it's just that we've grow numb to it)

I'm personally a monospace sorta person (i like fedra mono)--there are some really nice (alas, non-free) monos out there to choose between that are more fun to use than the more stoic traditional monospaces. Part of why proportional fonts are appealing is that we rarely need monospace fonts anymore: their use is largely vestigial (and aesthetic-driven) and also that many programming languages (python et al) often have highly literate code that benefits from typefaces designed with legibility in mind.

So i'm just sayin, i respect where you're coming from, but don't dismiss monos out of hand. There are nice ones which are coincidentally monospace, but aren't as frumpy or harsh as the monospace fonts that are typically advertised as 'best programming fonts.'

ugh2• 15 years ago

I don't know. Verdana and style? Verdana?

Letter Gothic, for example, has tons more style than most other fonts, proportional or not. Verdana, in that context, is to me just as to quite a bit more boring than nearly all the fonts mentioned in the article. (Courier excluded.)

protomyth• 15 years ago

I bought The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup which had program code written in a proportional font. It is absolutely a nightmare to read. When using a proportional font, I have "jitter" issues as the cursor scrolls down and keeps switching places on the screen. I have to navigate vertically then make the horizontal adjustments.

husted• 15 years ago

I do all my programming in Source Insight and it lets you switch between monospaced and proportional fonts with a keystroke. I find it easier to read code in proportional mode but find editing is best done in monospace mode.

I don't want to start an editor war but Source Insight is the best editor I've ever used and that includes Emacs and Vim. Yes I said it :-)

mryall• 15 years ago

Agreed. I find Lucida Grande a good programming font too.

Would love to see a list of top 10 proportional programming fonts.

lt• 15 years ago

I've been using Anonymous Pro: http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymouspro.html mentioned in a followup to that article: http://hivelogic.com/articles/anonymous-pro-programming-mono...

buster• 15 years ago

Wow, thanks! I've been looking at some of the fonts (mainly Inconsolas-dz, Anonymous Pro, Droid and Vera) and this is a great font. Love it!

swah• 15 years ago

davidw• 15 years ago

    -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

cschmidt2• 15 years ago

I use Pragmata as my programming font. It isn't free, but I've used it every day for years, so it certainly has justified its cost. Visiting his site, I see there's now a pro version, so I'll have to upgrade.

http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragmatapro.htm

NickPollard• 15 years ago

That's a really impressive font actually. I don't suppose there's any kind of trial version you're aware of? I don't want to splash out that kind of money unless I'm sure I'll keep using it.

cschmidt2• 15 years ago

No I don't think so. There is the basic set that you could get as a trial. I really love it, but as these comments show font choice is very much a personal thing.

joshuacc• 15 years ago

Inconsolata looks like it is nice for Mac users, but on Windows 7 with Cleartype enabled (the default) it is the blurriest font I've ever seen, regardless of what size I used.

Consolas, on the other hand, is exceedingly crisp.

FiReaNG3L• 15 years ago

Thanks for confirming this, I installed some of those and oh my they were ugly. I'll stick with Verdana for now :(

getonit• 15 years ago

I don't wish to troll, but I see this a lot and I can't for the life of me figure out how anyone needs to give this any more thought than 'monospace, next question?', despite many explanations each time.

Can someone shed some light on any advantages they feel are of a reasonably significant importance, and why? I mean, I can see plenty of advantages, but they're all so negligible they're not worth even the time it takes to change font, IMHO.

...and do please note the IMHO - I'm asking, not telling :)

timtadh• 15 years ago

I only use monospace fonts with well differentiated Ls and 1s. This is a pretty important issue to me as I was constantly making dumb mistakes, and in general it improves readability.

On another note, you probably change the default font when writing a major document in a word processor (unless your using LaTex in which case Computer Modern is often the way to go). Changing your coding font is exactly like that. People like to customize and give their system a personal flavor. Changing fonts and syntax colors is just one part of customizing a system.

eswat• 15 years ago

This was my main reason for finding the right monospace font for me too, and to easier differentiate O and 0—I prefer a bar across the zero instead of a dot.

But now that I’ve been using Inconsolata for years, it has become my final choice* so I won’t need to waste my time hunting and comparing for a better font. Done deal.

* http://patrickrhone.com/2010/11/05/final-choices/

icegreentea• 15 years ago

90% of it is really just how purdy it is. Picking the 'right' font will make you feel better when you stare at it all day. It's like how functionally, you could compose a 6000 word essay in comic sans, but really rather not.

But in other cases, depending on your display size/setup, I guess there will be advantages to certain fonts. Now, mind you, the 10 on this list are all 'good' so you won't really see it between them, but certain monospaced fonts have letters/symbols that are more easily confused with each other... like single quote, versus the thing under the tilde (whatever its called >.<)

scott_s• 15 years ago

Agreed. I care about aesthetics, and using fonts that I think are ugly just make me feel wrong when I'm working. The aesthetics of code is pleasing to me, and the font is part of that.

thomasgerbe• 15 years ago

I find it funny how so many developers I talk to online have this aversion to... well prettiness.

As if form and function is a zero-sum game. Or there's something inefficient about caring about aesthetics. What's wrong with wanting something to be aesthetically pleasing?

leviathan• 15 years ago

I believe it's called the back-tick.

trjordan• 15 years ago

For me, it wasn't about a particular feature -- it was just about the feel of the two.

A couple years ago, I was doing a lot of work on both my Windows box and my Mac. I noticed that I started to regard my Mac as "soft" and "friendly", and my Windows machine (with large external monitors) was "harsh". I felt mildly stressed out working on the Windows machine, even though I would frequently switch between them sitting at the same desk.

So, on a whim, I looked up the font on the Mac (Monaco), and set it up on Putty, and (surprisingly) it made a big difference. I felt like the code I had was easier to read, and I just generally worked better.

I've since decided I like Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, but at this point it's just something I set up on new computers, with no thought. It's not a rational thing, but who ever says I have to feel rationally about my tools? :)

Symmetry• 15 years ago

Generally speaking - most of the monospace fonts I see are totally fine and I really don't care about the differences between the 10 he mentioned as being good. But when I go to windows and run cmd.exe I'm blown away by just how ugly the font they use there is.

HannoverFiste• 15 years ago

I'm blown away that you can change the font for cmd.exe, but you only get one other option: Lucida Console. Still, it beats "Raster Fonts".

bena• 15 years ago

There's only a few things I look for in a programming font:

Monospacing And being able to see these as different glyphs easily: O0I1l

Other than that, I don't put too much though into it.

lhnz• 15 years ago

Brightens up otherwise dull days. I think that's all it is. People work better when they occasionally give their computer a makeover, and everything feels fresh.

tel• 15 years ago

Super fair question. Frankly, it's unlikely to ever be a big deal. Font design and choice is always a game of small details and your desire to spend time and effort on it depends on how much you care about small details.

For an art director doing print or web design, each and every single detail is vital. They are attempting to ship something as close to perfection as possible. From this grows a fantastic font market where artistic craftsmen have learned to honestly, subtly insert comfort, exoticism, 70s appeal, honesty, clarity, or any of many other subjective emotions into just a few pixels difference in the shape of letters we see all day every day.

But yeah, honestly, when coding, that stuff isn't going to kill you.

At the same time, there's a huge market of experts who have often released free monospaced fonts using the accumulated knowledge of the craft described above. It's easy to find fonts which solve the obvious problems (li1, oO0, mn) and possible to find ones that solve less obvious problems (textual color which can reduce reading stress, condensed fonts which can pack more into a line without feeling cluttered, larger x-height which can appear more inviting).

'Monospace, next question?' is really 60% of what these fonts can give you. 'Modern monospace, next question?' is probably 95%. The last 5 is just there if you care about it. Like usual, the last 5% is 500x the effort of 'Modern monospace, next question', though.

pbreit2• 15 years ago

If you're staring at it for 10 hours a day, I think it's fine to want to like it.

dreeves2• 15 years ago

I have a different answer than all the other replies: for me it's just about fitting as much of my code on the screen as possible. The standard xterm font is nice and compact. For every other font I've tried, if you adjust it so that it matches or beats the xterm font in terms of number of lines of code that fit on your screen and number of editor windows you can fit side by side, they are not readable. Like pretty much literally not readable. (I'm eager to be corrected if I'm wrong -- I may not have tried every font out there, but I've tried a lot of them.)

Therefore the xterm font (FixedMedium6x13) wins. But getting exactly that font in other editors like it is in xterms is not so simple:

For linux, see this comment in the current discussion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2584147

For osx, see my question, also in that thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2586300

turbohz2• 15 years ago

I've tried many monospaced fonts.

For a long time I was a ProFont guy. But I recently switched to Liberation Mono, and I just LOVE it.

EDIT: pic or didn't happen > http://i.imgur.com/UAag3.png

barrkel• 15 years ago

I'm still using 7pt Dina, a monospace bitmap font, in all console windows and my IDEs - all except Visual Studio 2010, that is, which doesn't properly support bitmap fonts (leading me to avoid using it whenever possible).

unfasten• 15 years ago

> ... all except Visual Studio 2010 ...

I'm also a fan of Dina and it's been the first change I make to any IDE or programming text editor I use since I found it years ago. I recently came across this when I started using IntelliJ IDEA and needed a TTF font: http://chrisrickard.blogspot.com/2010/03/dina-font-for-visua... . Quote from the page:

    *bonus* I found that this font can also be used with any .NET application
    (WPF or Windows Forms) that normally can't handle raster fonts.

Screenshot: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_n07tuwMNUu8/S603jWw9ZVI/AAAAAAAAAK...

And for anyone else curious here's the original font:

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

proexploit• 15 years ago

I too use Dina (based of Proggy). I tried a lot of different fonts and there's a few on this top 10 list that wouldn't work for me but since I found Dina, I haven't searched for another font or made another change.

LBarret• 15 years ago

using proggy.

ujjvala• 15 years ago

Why out of nowhere is this old article brought up ?

whatswtlogin• 15 years ago

Just to annoy you... that's the reason. It worked! I can't be1ieve it!

brupm2• 15 years ago

Awesome

Adrock• 15 years ago

If you're interested in programming fonts, I wrote a few posts doing some programmatic comparisons:

http://1overn.com/category/fonts/

kahawe• 15 years ago

I tried comparing several of the example screenshots next to each other and apart from them being different sizes and some are a bit more bold than others, I just can not tell any (significant) difference and cannot see any benefit one might have over the other.

Can someone enlighten me what the buzz is about here and why should I switch to Verdana or some monospaced font?

whatknott• 15 years ago

I'm kind of obsessed with my coding fonts. To find some new ones check out my stackoverflow question... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/485174/programming-fonts

MikeTaylor• 15 years ago

It's got to be 6x13, every single time.

There really is no other choice.

http://mirtchovski.com/p9/fonts/6x13.png

ScottBurson• 15 years ago

I'm a committed 6x10 user. 6x13 wouldn't give me enough lines on the screen.

marshray• 15 years ago

Glad I'm not the only one who actually likes blocky bitmap monospace fonts for programming.

I wish I could say why though. It just feels nice and computer-y. Maybe the pixels remind me of bits.

sedachv• 15 years ago

I keep trying others and always end up going back to 6x13. It's the perfect font when working on a notebook.

At work I have a larger display that sits farther away, and am running windows. Consolas is easier on the eyes there with two Emacs buffers side-by-side (at "108" Emacs font height).

I came across the 5x13 font (https://github.com/chneukirchen/5x13) and wanted to try it on my netbook. For some reason spaces come out as hatched boxes for me. The font itself looks promising but needs many changes (some of which I've figured enough out to make; but I don't know what to do with the space).

yamilg• 15 years ago

I'm in love with Meslo https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font works great both on my iTerm as well as in TextMate. What makes this font special is the L/M/S variations in the leading (line height). Give it a try, you won't regret!

sudonim• 15 years ago

I agree. I switched to Meslo too (based on Menlo). Menlo LG S DZ which has a dot in the middle of the 0. Looks like the dot comes from Mensch.

https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font/issues/1

bittersweet• 15 years ago

I'm trying this out at the moment (14 pt S DZ) but the current line marking in VIM for example looks weird because there is more whitespace on the bottom of the characters than at the top.

Other than that it is a welcome improvement to Menlo regular.

kinofcain• 15 years ago

This is perfect!

Eclipse has its lines of text set-solid which is seven brands of evil, so the "M" version of Meslo is a godsend.

funkyboy• 15 years ago

It looks slightly more airy than menlo. I'll try it on for a week. One day is not enough to decide.

yellowbkpk• 15 years ago

All of these fonts look cool, but in Eclipse on Linux (and other GTK-based text editors), the font renderer adds a few pixels to the width for bold text, which screws up the monospacing.

Has anyone been able to figure out a way to disable this?

Example from Eclipse: http://i.imgur.com/F3PhS.png

xbryanx2• 15 years ago

There is some discussion on this bug report, and a possible temporary fix. https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=69253

rdmlx• 15 years ago

Proggy Clean, at http://www.proggyfonts.com

ukaszg• 15 years ago

to me, the best font ever is http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/

not mentioned in the article, but I highly recommend it.

its avaliable ONLY in 10pt and only with Latin1 characters. But its so readable and beautiful I dont care :P

patrickg• 15 years ago

I experiment with this a lot, my fonts folder is full of fixed width fonts. But I somehow always go back to Monaco (11pt) white on black background. This is using TextMate, non anti-alias. (Example: http://tinypic.com/r/2hnayq8/7 ) Perhaps TextMate is too limited in this respect (it doesn't handle proportional fonts well).

delackner• 15 years ago

I searched through this whole thread looking for 'alias' to see if anyone else also can't stand anti-aliased fonts for coding, and I see that there are a few of us. I also always end up back with Monaco, but 10pt black on white. Perfectly readable and easy on the eyes.

pestaa• 15 years ago

I went with Terminus ( http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/shots.html ), never looked back.

I wanted to add this as a comment below the article just like the author asked, but it doesn't appear for me (using Chrome dev).

kwantam2• 15 years ago

Several others here have suggested my favorite font already, the standard 6x13 "Fixed" bitmap font.

Pretty much every Linux machine has a version of this, but most modern Debians (and probably others) that ship with fontconfig have bitmapped fonts turned off by default for programs that use fontconfig for their font info (i.e., not xterm, but gnome-terminal, usually gvim, et cetera).

If you want to use Fixed and other bitmapped fonts and they're just not there, take a look in /etc/fonts/conf.d for a file named (something like) 70-no-bitmaps.conf, a symblink to the same filename in /etc/fonts/conf.avail. If you remove the symblink from /etc/fonts/conf.d and instead

    ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf \
          /etc/fonts/conf.d

fontconfig will cache bitmapped fonts for you. Then you'll just have to get it to update your cache with

    fc-cache -f -r -v

and you should be able to use bitmapped fonts like Fixed.

You can look for other bitmapped fonts on your system with

    fc-list ":scalable=false" family pixelsize

which prints out the family name and the sizes for which the bitmaps are available.

    set guifont=Fixed\ Medium\ Semi-Condensed\ 10

makes gvim look precisely like a terminal for me.

afc• 15 years ago

Completely agree, that's the font I love.

I tried Inconsolata briefly in my xterm window but ... I don't know, I didn't like it. I guess it's a subjective thing, but I dislike anti-aliased font, I prefer the crisp look of my fixed bitmap font. :-)

windsurfer• 15 years ago

What if you have a high DPI monitor? Isn't that too hard to see?

kwantam2• 15 years ago

My desktop's monitor is about 100 dpi and it looks fine. I have a laptop with a 125dpi screen and a netbook with a 150dpi screen, and it looks fine there, too.

Just tried it under a Debian chroot on my phone (N900) and it was tiny but very readable on the 250DPI screen as well.

As this is entirely subjective, the answer for some people might be that it's unusable above 75dpi, while for me it's fine up to >3x that.

keeperofdakeys• 15 years ago

There are larger variants of this font.

dreeves2• 15 years ago

Has anyone figured out the equivalent of this on OSX? I asked about this a while back on StackOverflow:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3275956/is-there-a-versio...

20after4• 15 years ago

since I don't have a stackoverflow account I'll respond to your secondary question... IntelliJ / PhpStorm /etc allow you to enter a custom line spacing. (Plus PhpStorm is a great environment for web project development work)

http://www.jetbrains.com/products.html

ropers• 15 years ago

Would you consider taking a screenshot of how that looks?

Luyt• 15 years ago

In this article only fixed-width fonts are presented, while there are ever more and more developers using proportional fonts nowadays—because they're much easier to read.

On my unix system, for example, I use Vera Sans: http://www.michielovertoom.com/pictures/luyt-desktop.png

On my windows system I use Comic Sans to code, but I haven't got a screenie ready ;-)

martincmartin• 15 years ago

Am I the only one who programs in a proportional font? It's helpful for the same reason it's helpful in print: the letters are more distinguished from each other so the brain recognizes them more quickly, and you can fit more text into the same space.

I use a modified version of Georgia which adds a slash through the zero and changes the l (ell) to look less like the 1 (one).

oinksoft• 15 years ago

Variable-width fonts help with natural language, to detect phonemes or even words. Unfortunately, we are mostly dealing with machine language, where audio is not so important, so character-by-character reading is the norm.

mlntn• 15 years ago

Liberation Mono would be a good addition to the list.

https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/

RexRollman• 15 years ago

Although I am not a programmer, I do prefer monospaced fonts, and my favorite right now is the bitmap font Tamsyn. I recently discovered it via the Arch Linux wiki and I now have it set up as the font for my Xterm windows (set via .Xdefaults).

My favorite TTF monospaced font has got to be Consolas, which I use in Windows as the font for Foobar2000 and Notepad2 (I keep everything in plain text).

maxer• 15 years ago

i use notepad++ with Consolas under the zenburn theme, for clarity its the best, especially with long coding days

scorpion032• 15 years ago

Somehow, Inconsolata how much ever loved by so many people, is definitely not my taste.

Droid Sans Mono works the best for me. I have heard many Python programmers with the same taste.

pootify• 15 years ago

I've been using Meslo LG DZ (dotted zero), which is a custom version of Menlo tweaked for better vertical spacing. Looks great at 13pt in TextMate / MacVim.

https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font

modernerd• 15 years ago

I switched to PragmataPro[1] two months ago and love it. (Anti-aliasing turned off in iTerm2, with Vim and the Solarized colour scheme.[2])

When you stare at code all day, it's worth spending the time to make it as pleasant and legible an experience as you can.

[1] http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragmatapro.htm [2]: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

antihero2• 15 years ago

Don't think I could justify spending €170 on a font though, especially if it's not billable to a client.

eropple• 15 years ago

Solarized is nice, but PragmataPro is vomitous. There's such a thing as too compact, and man does that qualify.

I use Consolas at 16pt, but I also do most of my work on a 2560x1600 monitor. Consolas at 14pt on my laptop.

antihero2• 15 years ago

I rather like CG Mono as a pixel font.

sktrdie• 15 years ago

FixedSys is not on the list, what a shame.

tmcw• 15 years ago

Switched around for a long time, then realized that the coolest thing about Kod was the default font, so I stole it for vim:

The M+ Fonts: hugely recommended - http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/

pbreit2• 15 years ago

Me, too! I far prefer the density but it's probably ruining my eyes. Also, on TextMate you have to adjust the line height.

Semiapies• 15 years ago

I've been slowly shifting from Proggy to Consolas; it was easier once I embraced larger font sizes (I have 20/20 vision, and I'd like to keep that!). At that point, Consolas became a balm for the eyes.

jimmyjazz14• 15 years ago

I had not realized how a font could be so much easier on ones eyes until I started using Consolas for everything. I seriously feel more productive now which I did not expect.

aidenn0• 15 years ago

I mostly like inconsolata, but it doesn't keep my favorite part of deja-vu: the lowercase ell. I never ever confuse the ell with the one as it is so distinct. Inconsolata does this by removing the baseline on the one, which works, but I much prefer the deja-vu way of things.

vch• 15 years ago

Liberation Mono on Ubuntu works great for me. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/820/screenshotsr.png/

Jach• 15 years ago

I'm a fan of courier, though my favorite became Bitstream Vera Sans Mono some time ago after I was searching through my fonts for a better font. I like it a lot because it makes it easy to distinguish between O and 0, and l and 1.

roadnottaken2• 15 years ago

Me too. I think this is default on the Ubuntu terminal. I liked it so much I brought it over to my Windows computer at work and use it with Putty.

Athtar• 15 years ago

This is not directly related to fonts but for anyone using Visual Studio, this might be helpful: http://studiostyl.es/

It's a website that collects Visual Studio color schemes, so that people can download and install them rather than spending hours customizing their IDE to look like they want it to. Assuming they like one of the available schemes, of course.

ginsweater• 15 years ago

This is the article that introduced me to monofur, which I dearly love even though it seems fairly unpopular. Take a look[1] and you'll either think that lowercase L is a terrible idea or exactly the thing to distinguish it from the number 1. The rounded friendliness distinguishes it from all the other fonts I use; now when I see monofur (in the zenburn color scheme), it says "programming time" to my brain.

[1] http://www.dafont.com/monofur.font

roadnottaken2• 15 years ago

I love Hacker News. Where else would you get 100+ comments on an article about typefaces?

praptak• 15 years ago

Every second spent on "programming font" choice is a second wasted. Every single second. Twiddling fonts is to programming what applying flame decals is to car racing. If the font doesn't become transparent to you after uhm, about 5 seconds of focusing at the code then you should permanently switch to iPads as you have no business doing any real computing.

mcav• 15 years ago

Unless you'd otherwise be spending your time doing something else unproductive, in which case it doesn't matter.

to3m2• 15 years ago

You reckon?

I started out using FixedSys, since it was the default on the editor I was using at the time - PFE, I think. And since taking the time to switch to the X 6x13 font (which I happened to encounter towards the end of my time at university), I must have saved enough time scrolling horizontally through other people's code to break even.

I have dicked about a bit trying out other programming fonts, it's true, but having had success the once from doing this, why not double check?

orjan• 15 years ago

I think a better analogy is "Twiddling fonts is to programming what choosing a helmet is to car racing". An ill-fitting helmet will probably do the job just as well as a good fitting helmet, but why be uncomfortable? That said, I agree that there's a limit to how much effort you should put into font selection -- find one that you like and that works for your purposes and leave it at that.

aurynn• 15 years ago

My favourite font for coding, that which I use everywhere I can, is monofur. Reading it is like visual candy.

It also looks really good on Linux - the AA seems to work out quite well.

Edit for hey, reading the article that mentions monofur is a good idea too. :)

summitpush• 15 years ago

Trying out Consolas with iTerm2. Wish it was a little more easily portable.

res0nat0r• 15 years ago

I've been a big fan of smoothansi for a long time. It's part of the artwiz project.

http://codeblog.palos.ro/2008/02/08/smoothansi-font-best-for...

http://artwizaleczapka.sourceforge.net/

whackedspinach• 15 years ago

  Droid Sans Mono makes for a great programming font. It’s got a bit of flair, 
  and stands out among the other monospace fonts I’ve listed, and its only 
  real flaw is the lack of a slashed zero.

I use Droid Sans Mono with slashed zeros on my Arch Linux box. I find that I can get it up to a rather large font size (I don't see well) and it still looks really good.

Download link http://www.cosmix.org/software/files/DroidSansMonoSlashed.zi...

Arch Linux AUR link: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=40418

andyford• 15 years ago

The lowercase 'e' in Monofur is a deal breaker. Too reminiscent of italics. And the mixed baseline numerals don't help either. Otherwise it's pretty nice. Of the 10, Inconsolata deserves to be #1.

adambyrtek• 15 years ago

It has been submitted at least three times already, and you can find more comments there:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=615088

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058946

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=613371

joshaidan• 15 years ago

hmm... why are all programming fonts terminal style, or monospace fonts? Well I guess it's to ensure proper indentation and alignment of lines of code. I guess that explains why code looks horrible when you copy and past it into an HTML page without changing the font.

hmm... thinking out loud.

nikcub• 15 years ago

consolas is an excellent font for both terminal and editing. if you would like to install it for OS X or UNIX, I have extracted the TTF as well as the OS X installer package and placed them into a repo here:

https://bitbucket.org/nik/consolas/

(the Microsoft license allows this if you have a license for Office, Windows Vista+ or Visual Studio)

fictorial• 15 years ago

I am a big fan of the M+ fonts [1], especially "M+ 1mn" at 24pt. Here's a screenshot of iTerm2 on Mac OS X: http://i.imgur.com/PjfOY.png

[1] http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/index-...

faruken• 15 years ago

I prefer Menlo.

ars• 15 years ago

I've been using Dina - it's designed as a programmers font.

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

arapidhs• 15 years ago

is the proggy font free? great article some new discoveries for me in there.

radiosnob• 15 years ago

From my experience,a lot programmers get set in their ways. For example, I just stuck with using the standard Console font for my IDE when I installed it years ago. Then I came across this article, or one similar, and messed around with different fonts and sizes. The difference it made was surprising. I feel like it definitely has made an improvement in how I work. I would recommend people try testing new fonts, layouts, etc at least once a year. the aesthetics is just as important as the content, even when coding.

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