4 ms·

I'm not clear on the outcry against ligatures. This is a client-side setting and not committed to code, is that right? If so, this is like prescribing that we

by libria 6y ago

I'm not clear on the outcry against ligatures. This is a client-side setting and not committed to code, is that right? If so, this is like prescribing that we should use dark-mode over light-mode because I like it. Now during the pandemic we might screenshare more often so I can disable it for that, but for development on my own time on my own screen it's nonyabizness.

optimuspaul 6y ago
I was going to complain about them because there are a few fonts there I like a lot, but not the ligatures. Wasn't sure if it was = or == or === in the samples.
- libria 6y ago
  You can disable the ligatures for all those fonts and only see =, ==, === explicitly.
RobertKerans 6y ago
People like Having Opinions About Things In Public. For ligatures it's bikeshedding taken to absolutely ridiculous extremes. It's past prescribing night/dark mode, it's at the level of pre/proscribing colour themes in a text editor. It is a personal choice and it doesn't affect anyone else bar me. If you don't like ligatures, I don't care, it has no bearing on whether I like ligatures (and it is a personal choice, what fonts are easier to read is always based on what I'm used to reading text in) /rant
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  I disagree that it doesn’t affect anyone else. The only way it can truly not affect anyone else is if no one else knows that you use ligatures. And dark/light is fundamentally different: it doesn’t actually change the content, just the colours. Similarly most font choices are purely presentational in effect, with the variation easily within what a normal viewer can be expected to read. (There are exceptions; for example, I’ve seen a couple of fonts go for a very old style of r in their fancy joined-writing style italics which Indians will have no trouble reading, but which has completely fallen out of use in most of the English-speaking world, certainly in Australia, and so may be difficult to read.) But ligatures change the actual glyphs, so that your fingers must type something other than what your eyes see, and any viewer must decode the ligature’s meaning. And this is the key reason why the proliferation of ligatures in coding fonts becomes a problem for everyone. If anyone else ever sees your screen (in person, in a screencast, or in teleconferencing with screen sharing), it has affected someone else. At an objective level, I think it’s fairly clear that for most people in most circumstances, a light background is superior to dark, and ligatures are a bad idea. However, at a personal level, the subjective factors routinely outweigh the fairly slight objective factors. Popularity breeds popularity. I have been exposed to ligatures in coding fonts on websites and other people’s screens. I never chose to use ligatures. There’s an ancient philosophical question about personal freedoms in all this.
  - RobertKerans 6y ago
    > The only way it can truly not affect anyone else is if no one else knows that you use ligatures That covers 99.999999999% of the times ligatures are used then, that's my point. Sure, in a situation like screensharing, using ligatures "affects someone else". A font also "affects someone else". A theme also "affects someone else". Night/dark mode also "affects someone else". That's a given. It's also something that is normally trivial to turn on or off. And sure, very, very occasionally people use custom fonts with ligatures turned on in the CSS on websites. > I think it’s fairly clear that for most people in most circumstances, a light background is superior to dark, and ligatures are a bad idea. It's not clear at all. Regarding typefaces and character sets and reading comprehension, what a person is used to reading turns out to be the easiest thing for them to read (why do you use a monospaced font in your text editor?). I get that it's a fun thing to argue about because it is completely stylistic, context-sensitive and personal and has near-zero real world effects (I'm doing it now!) > But ligatures change the actual glyphs, so that your fingers must type something other than what your eyes see, and any viewer must decode the ligature’s meaning. As opposed to typing a collection of "actual glyphs" which the viewer must then decode back to their actual meaning via the conventions of the language? The characters available a given programming language are determined by [sensible] technical limitations, so creative use needs to be made of those to represent concepts that are already represented by single, well known characters that are not available in the PLs character set. My beef is that talking about which fonts you like/dislike: that's a productive discussion as they're a personal thing, very often an aesthetic choice. But banket saying "usage of this _type_ of font is bad": that's not productive in any way, it's pointless, as it ignores the huge % of people who clearly don't share this view. Saying "it's fairly clear ligatures are a bad idea": no, it's display preference, and if is forced on you, you will generally have agency to request it be changed back to something you are used to. And this is every time coding fonts appear in HN: comment after comment stating the latter as if it's some empirical truth when it most definitely is not (and yes, similar thing for tabs Vs spaces etc, so obviously everyone paints the bikeshed, but this time it's completely tied to one person's personal computer display)

by libria 6y ago

optimuspaul 6y ago

I was going to complain about them because there are a few fonts there I like a lot, but not the ligatures. Wasn't sure if it was = or == or === in the samples.

libria 6y ago
You can disable the ligatures for all those fonts and only see =, ==, === explicitly.

RobertKerans 6y ago

People like Having Opinions About Things In Public. For ligatures it's bikeshedding taken to absolutely ridiculous extremes. It's past prescribing night/dark mode, it's at the level of pre/proscribing colour themes in a text editor. It is a personal choice and it doesn't affect anyone else bar me. If you don't like ligatures, I don't care, it has no bearing on whether I like ligatures (and it is a personal choice, what fonts are easier to read is always based on what I'm used to reading text in) /rant

chrismorgan 6y ago
I disagree that it doesn’t affect anyone else. The only way it can truly not affect anyone else is if no one else knows that you use ligatures. And dark/light is fundamentally different: it doesn’t actually change the content, just the colours. Similarly most font choices are purely presentational in effect, with the variation easily within what a normal viewer can be expected to read. (There are exceptions; for example, I’ve seen a couple of fonts go for a very old style of r in their fancy joined-writing style italics which Indians will have no trouble reading, but which has completely fallen out of use in most of the English-speaking world, certainly in Australia, and so may be difficult to read.) But ligatures change the actual glyphs, so that your fingers must type something other than what your eyes see, and any viewer must decode the ligature’s meaning. And this is the key reason why the proliferation of ligatures in coding fonts becomes a problem for everyone. If anyone else ever sees your screen (in person, in a screencast, or in teleconferencing with screen sharing), it has affected someone else. At an objective level, I think it’s fairly clear that for most people in most circumstances, a light background is superior to dark, and ligatures are a bad idea. However, at a personal level, the subjective factors routinely outweigh the fairly slight objective factors. Popularity breeds popularity. I have been exposed to ligatures in coding fonts on websites and other people’s screens. I never chose to use ligatures. There’s an ancient philosophical question about personal freedoms in all this.
- RobertKerans 6y ago
  > The only way it can truly not affect anyone else is if no one else knows that you use ligatures That covers 99.999999999% of the times ligatures are used then, that's my point. Sure, in a situation like screensharing, using ligatures "affects someone else". A font also "affects someone else". A theme also "affects someone else". Night/dark mode also "affects someone else". That's a given. It's also something that is normally trivial to turn on or off. And sure, very, very occasionally people use custom fonts with ligatures turned on in the CSS on websites. > I think it’s fairly clear that for most people in most circumstances, a light background is superior to dark, and ligatures are a bad idea. It's not clear at all. Regarding typefaces and character sets and reading comprehension, what a person is used to reading turns out to be the easiest thing for them to read (why do you use a monospaced font in your text editor?). I get that it's a fun thing to argue about because it is completely stylistic, context-sensitive and personal and has near-zero real world effects (I'm doing it now!) > But ligatures change the actual glyphs, so that your fingers must type something other than what your eyes see, and any viewer must decode the ligature’s meaning. As opposed to typing a collection of "actual glyphs" which the viewer must then decode back to their actual meaning via the conventions of the language? The characters available a given programming language are determined by [sensible] technical limitations, so creative use needs to be made of those to represent concepts that are already represented by single, well known characters that are not available in the PLs character set. My beef is that talking about which fonts you like/dislike: that's a productive discussion as they're a personal thing, very often an aesthetic choice. But banket saying "usage of this _type_ of font is bad": that's not productive in any way, it's pointless, as it ignores the huge % of people who clearly don't share this view. Saying "it's fairly clear ligatures are a bad idea": no, it's display preference, and if is forced on you, you will generally have agency to request it be changed back to something you are used to. And this is every time coding fonts appear in HN: comment after comment stating the latter as if it's some empirical truth when it most definitely is not (and yes, similar thing for tabs Vs spaces etc, so obviously everyone paints the bikeshed, but this time it's completely tied to one person's personal computer display)