4 ms·

I think this is a fun innovation and I might try to use it in my terminal, but for coding, the real solution should be obvious: use a proportional font.

by tobr 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Stratoscope 3y ago
This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but proportional fonts are great. One question people sometimes ask is, "How can you code in a proportional font? How do you line things up in columns?" The answer is you don't. For example, the Black code formatter for Python completely eschews column alignment of this sort: foo.bar(one, two, three) (Imagine that the words were long enough that the whole thing wouldn't fit on one line.) Instead, Black formats it like this: foo.bar( one, two, three ) No column alignment, only indentation. Code formatted like this is equally readable in a proportional or monospaced font. You don't need monospaced fonts! I've read and written all my code in proportional fonts for close to 20 years. My current one is Trebuchet++, a variant of Trebuchet MS that I customized in FontForge. Trebuchet MS is pretty good on its own. For example, all of the "confusable" glyphs are easy to distinguish. And it renders very nicely on a high-DPI display. Its tilde is pretty bad, though. It's tiny and almost looks like a hyphen. So that was the first thing I fixed, putting in a better tilde. Then I experimented with spacing for the _ and . glyphs. I added negative margin on both sides of the _, while keeping its width. And I added positive spacing on both sides of the . glyph. Consider code like this: snake_case_name.another_snaky_name() These spacing changes have the affect of pulling the individual words in each name closer together, while increasing the separation between the two names. It is subtle, but to my eye it helps readability. Next up will be to add some positive margin inside the three pairs of brackety things: (), [], {}. I have always found that it helps readability to add a space inside parens and such, but most contemporary code formatters prohibit this. With a proportional font I can tweak the font to put some visual spacing there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- adastra22 3y ago
  "If you stop doing things which derive benefits from monospaced fonts, then you can get away with a proportional font." Thanks, but no. Your foo.bar() example is significantly less readable the way Black formats it.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    I don't like the extra lines, but also I almost never care if "one" is exactly lined up with "two". You can use proportional fonts with the first example too.
    - kdmccormick 3y ago
      > can use proportional fonts with the first example too. what, how? Wouldn't the number of spaces you'd need to prefix lines 2 and 3 with vary between fonts?
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        Not if you don't care about "one" exactly lining up with "two". foo.bar(one two, three) //this is fine, and slight drift on different fonts is also fine I would have demonstrated in a proper proportional way but HN destroys NBSP.
        adastra22 3y ago
        That was the whole point.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        You dismissed the idea as "if you stop doing thing which benefit from monospaced fonts", suggesting that monospaced fonts are better in this situation. My argument is that both fonts are just as good in this situation, and monospaced fonts aren't benefiting here. You don't need monospaced fonts to use formatting 1, you can just choose formatting 1 and then use either kind of font. Doesn't that mean I disagree with your post?

I think this is a fun innovation and I might try to use it in my terminal, but for coding, the real solution should be obvious: use a proportional font.

by tobr 3y ago

I think this is a fun innovation and I might try to use it in my terminal, but for coding, the real solution should be obvious: use a proportional font.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Stratoscope 3y ago

This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but proportional fonts are great. One question people sometimes ask is, "How can you code in a proportional font? How do you line things up in columns?" The answer is you don't. For example, the Black code formatter for Python completely eschews column alignment of this sort: foo.bar(one, two, three) (Imagine that the words were long enough that the whole thing wouldn't fit on one line.) Instead, Black formats it like this: foo.bar( one, two, three ) No column alignment, only indentation. Code formatted like this is equally readable in a proportional or monospaced font. You don't need monospaced fonts! I've read and written all my code in proportional fonts for close to 20 years. My current one is Trebuchet++, a variant of Trebuchet MS that I customized in FontForge. Trebuchet MS is pretty good on its own. For example, all of the "confusable" glyphs are easy to distinguish. And it renders very nicely on a high-DPI display. Its tilde is pretty bad, though. It's tiny and almost looks like a hyphen. So that was the first thing I fixed, putting in a better tilde. Then I experimented with spacing for the _ and . glyphs. I added negative margin on both sides of the _, while keeping its width. And I added positive spacing on both sides of the . glyph. Consider code like this: snake_case_name.another_snaky_name() These spacing changes have the affect of pulling the individual words in each name closer together, while increasing the separation between the two names. It is subtle, but to my eye it helps readability. Next up will be to add some positive margin inside the three pairs of brackety things: (), [], {}. I have always found that it helps readability to add a space inside parens and such, but most contemporary code formatters prohibit this. With a proportional font I can tweak the font to put some visual spacing there.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
adastra22 3y ago
"If you stop doing things which derive benefits from monospaced fonts, then you can get away with a proportional font." Thanks, but no. Your foo.bar() example is significantly less readable the way Black formats it.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  I don't like the extra lines, but also I almost never care if "one" is exactly lined up with "two". You can use proportional fonts with the first example too.
  - kdmccormick 3y ago
    > can use proportional fonts with the first example too. what, how? Wouldn't the number of spaces you'd need to prefix lines 2 and 3 with vary between fonts?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Not if you don't care about "one" exactly lining up with "two". foo.bar(one two, three) //this is fine, and slight drift on different fonts is also fine I would have demonstrated in a proper proportional way but HN destroys NBSP.
      - adastra22 3y ago
        That was the whole point.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        You dismissed the idea as "if you stop doing thing which benefit from monospaced fonts", suggesting that monospaced fonts are better in this situation. My argument is that both fonts are just as good in this situation, and monospaced fonts aren't benefiting here. You don't need monospaced fonts to use formatting 1, you can just choose formatting 1 and then use either kind of font. Doesn't that mean I disagree with your post?