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It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-intera

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

nkrisc 9y ago
Well, depending on your audience I think it would be a step backward for static display of code since in some cases it isn't clear what to actually type. Fine for experienced audiences but really frustrating for anyone learning. For example, the 'x' in the hex value. Is it a regular 'x' or another character? How about those fat arrows? How are those typed?
- draw_down 9y ago
  Good point. Copying and pasting should still work ok, but it would be confusing to read for someone who didn't recognize the ligature glyphs.
- wereHamster 9y ago
  If you don't use one of those fonts that support ligatures, you'll see the plain ascii characters. You shouldn't use these fonts if you don't know what kinds of ligatures it supports or how it converts plain ascii characters into a higher form.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    I was commenting on the use of these fonts to display code to others, not use while writing.
kej 9y ago
In my experience using Fira Code with VS, VS Code, and Konsole, the monospacing isn't a problem. The ligatures are designed so that they fill up the same width as the original characters. My opinion might be biased by a heavy math background, but I like that e.g. "less than or equal" now looks the same as the way I write it on paper, and I don't find myself spending any time thinking about what that symbol means. I'll concede that it totally messes up command line help text in the console, though. You get lots of stuff like --parameter=<value> turned into —parameter≤value> but it hasn't annoyed me enough to switch back yet.
- draw_down 9y ago
  In the GIF, you can see the other characters earlier in the ligature shifting around when a character is added or removed to complete or undo the ligature. That would just bother me.
  - kej 9y ago
    Ah, that's fair. It is a little bit of visual noise, maybe roughly equivalent to the blinking of matching parens or braces as you move your cursor around. I think the slight improvement in visual clarity when reading the ligatures makes up for the slight noise when writing them, but it's definitely a personal preference.

It slightly alters the monospacing which would drive me batty when coding, but cool idea. Especially for displaying code like in a blog post or other non-interactive use.

nkrisc 9y ago

Well, depending on your audience I think it would be a step backward for static display of code since in some cases it isn't clear what to actually type. Fine for experienced audiences but really frustrating for anyone learning. For example, the 'x' in the hex value. Is it a regular 'x' or another character? How about those fat arrows? How are those typed?

draw_down 9y ago
Good point. Copying and pasting should still work ok, but it would be confusing to read for someone who didn't recognize the ligature glyphs.
wereHamster 9y ago
If you don't use one of those fonts that support ligatures, you'll see the plain ascii characters. You shouldn't use these fonts if you don't know what kinds of ligatures it supports or how it converts plain ascii characters into a higher form.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  I was commenting on the use of these fonts to display code to others, not use while writing.

kej 9y ago

In my experience using Fira Code with VS, VS Code, and Konsole, the monospacing isn't a problem. The ligatures are designed so that they fill up the same width as the original characters. My opinion might be biased by a heavy math background, but I like that e.g. "less than or equal" now looks the same as the way I write it on paper, and I don't find myself spending any time thinking about what that symbol means. I'll concede that it totally messes up command line help text in the console, though. You get lots of stuff like --parameter=<value> turned into —parameter≤value> but it hasn't annoyed me enough to switch back yet.

draw_down 9y ago
In the GIF, you can see the other characters earlier in the ligature shifting around when a character is added or removed to complete or undo the ligature. That would just bother me.
- kej 9y ago
  Ah, that's fair. It is a little bit of visual noise, maybe roughly equivalent to the blinking of matching parens or braces as you move your cursor around. I think the slight improvement in visual clarity when reading the ligatures makes up for the slight noise when writing them, but it's definitely a personal preference.