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Ligatures make code harder to read and harder to edit. It's not just personal preference, it's the science of usability. When I press backspace or cursor keys,

Ligatures make code harder to read and harder to edit. It's not just personal preference, it's the science of usability. When I press backspace or cursor keys, I expect one glyph to be erased, not who-knows-how-many (half?!). Authors of content and programs with ligatures-by-default subject their readers and users to the penalty of ligatures. Some people like pain, but that doesn't mean we need pain switches on everything with pain set to on by default.

jhanschoo 4y ago
> When I press backspace or cursor keys, I expect one glyph to be erased, not who-knows-how-many. That's you, and not very generalizable. Many people edit on sites with ligatures and many people edit non-Latin text where isolated, non-ligatured text is wrong (Arabic, some Indic scripts, Han characters, Japanese katakana). Me personally, with respect to code, I pretty much think in terms of tokens: to remove the `==`, I backspace twice, rather than that to remove the `==`, I remove `=` and then the other `=`, and each requires one backspace.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Also ligatures in a monospaced font are going to tell you they’re multiple characters because they’re either fat af or misaligned. You know it’s coming. To be honest though I think I like those big fat commas the best. As someone pointed out, using dot and comma as semantically important in software is a mistake because they only differ by one pixel.
  - cosmotic 4y ago
    Vertical columns of background have, until ligatures, been a bullet proof means for brains to delineate characters. Is it possible to figure out with an increased cognitive load? Yes. Is it exactly as easy as without? No.
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      I'm confused, because I can delineate the characters in your comment fine, and this is with my browser's default sans-serif proportional typeface. I tend to read English text left-to-right, though, so if others are more comfortable reading top-to-bottom (or bottom-to-top, or middle-out), then my apologies.
      - cosmotic 4y ago
        I'm confused too. The comment was about ligatures in computer code, but did not itself contain computer code.
amake 4y ago
> It's not just personal preference, it's the science of usability It's obviously personal preference, because many people prefer it. If I found ligatures harder to read or edit then I wouldn't use them, but I don't, so I do. > programs with ligatures-by-default Such as?
- cosmotic 4y ago
  Preferring it is personal preference. It being good or better is science. People prefer dark theme even though it's objectively harder to read because of the reduced contrast ratio, among other reasons.
  - amake 4y ago
    Are you haranguing people about liking dark mode in comments sections as well, or just ligatures? > It being good or better is science Citation needed.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Highly convenient that your preference is “science” whereas other people’s preference is just a preference. I’m not a ligatures fan myself but it seems completely arbitrary and don’t see at all how it’s scientific. You could convince me otherwise by posting some references to this science.
    - cosmotic 4y ago
      My preference is easier to read and edit. Readability and editability come with consistency, and that's science. Ligatures break the consistency.
  - mcluck 4y ago
    You've shot yourself in the foot with your dark mode comment. It's not scientifically proven that dark mode is better than light mode or vice versa. It has been proven, as you mentioned, that contrast ratio is important. Contrast ratio is not dependent on if the background is dark or light. It's dependent on the comparison between the dark and light shades.
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
Ligatures make code easier to read because they map 1-to-1 to tokens. Ideally, the font would also be proportional; and the IDE would support elastic tabstops... But the tech isn't there yet.
detaro 4y ago
If it's established science that they are worse, could you share some citations backing that?

jhanschoo 4y ago

> When I press backspace or cursor keys, I expect one glyph to be erased, not who-knows-how-many. That's you, and not very generalizable. Many people edit on sites with ligatures and many people edit non-Latin text where isolated, non-ligatured text is wrong (Arabic, some Indic scripts, Han characters, Japanese katakana). Me personally, with respect to code, I pretty much think in terms of tokens: to remove the `==`, I backspace twice, rather than that to remove the `==`, I remove `=` and then the other `=`, and each requires one backspace.

hinkley 4y ago
Also ligatures in a monospaced font are going to tell you they’re multiple characters because they’re either fat af or misaligned. You know it’s coming. To be honest though I think I like those big fat commas the best. As someone pointed out, using dot and comma as semantically important in software is a mistake because they only differ by one pixel.
- cosmotic 4y ago
  Vertical columns of background have, until ligatures, been a bullet proof means for brains to delineate characters. Is it possible to figure out with an increased cognitive load? Yes. Is it exactly as easy as without? No.
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    I'm confused, because I can delineate the characters in your comment fine, and this is with my browser's default sans-serif proportional typeface. I tend to read English text left-to-right, though, so if others are more comfortable reading top-to-bottom (or bottom-to-top, or middle-out), then my apologies.
    - cosmotic 4y ago
      I'm confused too. The comment was about ligatures in computer code, but did not itself contain computer code.

amake 4y ago

> It's not just personal preference, it's the science of usability It's obviously personal preference, because many people prefer it. If I found ligatures harder to read or edit then I wouldn't use them, but I don't, so I do. > programs with ligatures-by-default Such as?

cosmotic 4y ago
Preferring it is personal preference. It being good or better is science. People prefer dark theme even though it's objectively harder to read because of the reduced contrast ratio, among other reasons.
- amake 4y ago
  Are you haranguing people about liking dark mode in comments sections as well, or just ligatures? > It being good or better is science Citation needed.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Highly convenient that your preference is “science” whereas other people’s preference is just a preference. I’m not a ligatures fan myself but it seems completely arbitrary and don’t see at all how it’s scientific. You could convince me otherwise by posting some references to this science.
  - cosmotic 4y ago
    My preference is easier to read and edit. Readability and editability come with consistency, and that's science. Ligatures break the consistency.
- mcluck 4y ago
  You've shot yourself in the foot with your dark mode comment. It's not scientifically proven that dark mode is better than light mode or vice versa. It has been proven, as you mentioned, that contrast ratio is important. Contrast ratio is not dependent on if the background is dark or light. It's dependent on the comparison between the dark and light shades.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

Ligatures make code easier to read because they map 1-to-1 to tokens. Ideally, the font would also be proportional; and the IDE would support elastic tabstops... But the tech isn't there yet.

detaro 4y ago

If it's established science that they are worse, could you share some citations backing that?