3 ms·

This article really irritates me, despite the fact that I broadly agree with the conclusion. The points on Unicode and wrong substitution feel weak, because th

This article really irritates me, despite the fact that I broadly agree with the conclusion. The points on Unicode and wrong substitution feel weak, because there's plenty of valid situations where Unicode isn't displayed "correctly," and plenty of situations where the characters displayed don't match they semantic meaning. In my opinion, the main reason to avoid ligatures isn't some big moral issue on "correct meaning" or "properly using Unicode." The main issue is that ligatures can cause confusion if the reader doesn't know the ligature (which is most readers). For what it's worth, I like using font ligatures on my own IDEs. I think they look nice. But I would never choose them for anything displayed for anyone else.

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
I don't see a problem at all. If you like ligatures in your code and they work for you, you use them, if not you don't. It's not like they're hard coded somewhere, they're a matter of personal preference, just like spaces/tabs and fixed-width fonts. It's just the author's preference in rant form, nothing more.
- taormina 5y ago
  The other thing the author isn't considering is that some of us have UI additions that make my IDE display a ligature, that visually replaces a known set of keystrokes. Now, what I actually typed is still there! It just looks fancy in my code editor.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  spaces/tabs ARE hardcoded in your code, but otherwise, yes exactly.
Ciantic 5y ago
The article is probably written to irritate, whether intentionally or not. While it's easy to accept that ligatures in public code is bad, he still goes on to say: > “What do you mean, it’s not a matter of taste? I like using ligatures when I code.” Great! In so many ways, I don’t care what you do in private. Although I predict you will eventually burn yourself on this hot mess... Also note the ending line: > If you don’t believe me, try it for 10 or 15 years." Well, ligatures has soon been in ten years or more in programming fonts. In many ways, the article has a good point, don't use ligatures in public code. It has second point too, which I think is not true: If you use ligatures, you may write logical bugs by twisted semantics. This is a statement, which would require statistical study on programmers who use ligatures and who doesn't. Do they write more bugs or not? I find some ligatures very helpful for readability, and thus they actually reduce bugs, but it's all in the eye of the reader.
- dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
  Ligatures are display only. They are not part of any language syntax I know of.

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago

I don't see a problem at all. If you like ligatures in your code and they work for you, you use them, if not you don't. It's not like they're hard coded somewhere, they're a matter of personal preference, just like spaces/tabs and fixed-width fonts. It's just the author's preference in rant form, nothing more.

taormina 5y ago
The other thing the author isn't considering is that some of us have UI additions that make my IDE display a ligature, that visually replaces a known set of keystrokes. Now, what I actually typed is still there! It just looks fancy in my code editor.
michaelcampbell 5y ago
spaces/tabs ARE hardcoded in your code, but otherwise, yes exactly.

Ciantic 5y ago

The article is probably written to irritate, whether intentionally or not. While it's easy to accept that ligatures in public code is bad, he still goes on to say: > “What do you mean, it’s not a matter of taste? I like using ligatures when I code.” Great! In so many ways, I don’t care what you do in private. Although I predict you will eventually burn yourself on this hot mess... Also note the ending line: > If you don’t believe me, try it for 10 or 15 years." Well, ligatures has soon been in ten years or more in programming fonts. In many ways, the article has a good point, don't use ligatures in public code. It has second point too, which I think is not true: If you use ligatures, you may write logical bugs by twisted semantics. This is a statement, which would require statistical study on programmers who use ligatures and who doesn't. Do they write more bugs or not? I find some ligatures very helpful for readability, and thus they actually reduce bugs, but it's all in the eye of the reader.

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
Ligatures are display only. They are not part of any language syntax I know of.