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Top Programming Fonts

68 points by danbenjamin 17y ago

badger7 17y ago
Badger's Top 1 programming font: Something monospace. (Hmmm, I seem to have some time left over... should I review my choice of font, or just code something with my current choice?)
jasongullickson 17y ago
ProFont - what other font is easily readable down to 6pt?
- joshuarr 17y ago
  Deja Vu - my personal favorite.
- benreesman 17y ago
  upvoted because profont is simply lovely, but i can't get it to work reasonably on the mac. switched first to inconsolata, but i like consolas a little bit better.
  - jasongullickson 17y ago
    I haven't tried it on the Mac yet only because I don't have a way to unstuff it w/o enduring that horrible stuffit website...
- tremendo 17y ago
  Andale Mono not only works great at small sizes, but also at bigger ones (14 & up) which ProFont does not (I have ProFontWindows which looks deformed at size 10, and annoyingly appears bolded at any bigger size than that).
- Zev 17y ago
  Why would you make code that small? I personally like to be able to read code, not show lots of it on screen that's illegible.
daeken 17y ago
No mention of Dina? That's a shame. I love Proggy, but Dina is much more readable IMO. (It's on the Proggy site as well)
ashleyw 17y ago
I love 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono'. I've tried tons of fonts, but always fall back on that. I use Ruby a lot, and it complements the language nicely…
- bittersweet 17y ago
  Indeed, I've been using this font since watching the railscasts by Ryan Bates and it's great. I was using the standard Monaco before. I don't know why but switching to a new font made me a happier programmer!
- ashleyw 17y ago
  I forgot to mention, I use it on OSX, where the anti-aliasing makes a big difference; when I tried it on Windows, it didn't look that great!
callahad 17y ago
For whatever reason, I can't stand how Windows or FreeType anti-alias Inconsolata. But on a Mac, it's dreamy. It is, however, somewhat annoying when I exuberantly recommend a typeface, only to see it become rather unusable when rendered by another system.
- benreesman 17y ago
  if you like inconsolata on the mac, try consolas which is very similar but in my opinion just a little bit more aesthetically pleasing.
moe 17y ago
In the past, we’ve had to decide between tiny monospace fonts or jagged edges. But today, modern operating systems do a great job of anti-aliasing, making monospace fonts look great at any size. It’s not 1990 anymore. Give your tired eyes a break and bump up that font size. No, thanks. All the anti-aliased screenshots in his post look blurry and some make me outright cringe. Also he missed my personal favorite: http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/ http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/
- Semiapies 17y ago
  That's a good-looking font, but I personally need a big visual distinction, like a slash or a dot, between O's and 0's. (I do like the distinction between l's and 1's, though - lots of fonts screw that up.)
  - moe 17y ago
    Well, I think I would prefer a slashed zero for confidence, too, but can't say this has ever been an issue in my years of real world use.
    - Semiapies 17y ago
      That's why I said "I personally". :)
- erlanger 17y ago
  That font makes me cringe. It reminds me of when the screen resolution is too narrow, widening all text.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    Same here. The letter-forms themselves look good, though. Maybe if the spacing between the letters were narrower? The kerning (that's what it's called, right?) seems unusually large, particularly for a fixed-width font.
chaosmachine 17y ago
Colsolas was the best thing to come out of Vista. In fact, it's the only thing I kept when I switched back to XP, and later, to OS X.
- wolverian 17y ago
  I used Consolas for ages, but now switched back to DejaVu Mono, mostly because it's thinner horizontally.
yan 17y ago
Pragmata is absolutely wonderful on OS X IMHO (http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragma.htm http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragma.htm) It's kinda pricey, but so beautiful when sized and anti-aliased right.
itodd 17y ago
Terminus is by far my favorite. I am disappointed it was not mentioned. http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font apt-get install xfonts-terminus
- rkowalick 17y ago
  Dedicated terminus user too!
- bitwize 17y ago
  The only real alternative to Terminus is LispM font: http://www.eurogaran.com/downloads/lispmfont/ http://www.eurogaran.com/downloads/lispmfont/ A similar appearance! The CADR was dreamy in many ways, even its screen font. Downside: only one size...
- lsdkfjqoeiru 17y ago
  I recently switched to Terminus, and I've really been enjoying it. None of the versions I could find worked well on OS X though, so I converted the BDF sources to dfont. If anyone is interested, I just tossed the file on github, http://github.com/deactivated/dfonts/tree http://github.com/deactivated/dfonts/tree.
spoondan 17y ago
By my reckoning, six of the ten have major flaws that make them completely unacceptable for use as a programming font. Courier, Profont, Consolas, and Incosolata all have insufficient distinctions between 'l' (lowercase L) and '1' (one). Droid Sans Mono has an 'O' (uppercase O) that can pass for '0' (zero). Perhaps by virtue of the font size, Proggy has a lowercase L that can pass for a vertical bar at a glimpse. If you look closely, Proggy's lowercase L looks like a one -- this is less of an issue because it is visually distinct from Proggy's one glyph, but I still don't like it.
- lallysingh 17y ago
  For day-to-day programming, why does l/1, O/0 matter? I usually don't see them in contexts where they could be confused.
  - joeyo 17y ago
    Typos like these are some of the hardest to debug. More than once I've been at the point of pulling my hair out on some nonsensical error message that is fixed by simply retyping the line. Trust me, you don't want to waste your time on this one.
  - spoondan 17y ago
    A few cases that have occurred over the years: 1. Working with inherited code, one of the original programmers had an identifier I believed was "el" (short for "element") but that was actually "e1" (presumably short for "element 1"). You don't know frustration until your compiler tells you "undefined identifier 'el'" when, by all appearances, there's nothing wrong with your code. Not only did I waste a couple of hours on this, but the stress probably shortened my life by a few hours, too. 2. Embarrassingly enough: For reasons that I don't understand, I have on a couple of occasions typed a zero where I meant to type an uppercase 'O'. I shipped Python code that had a bug in it because I assigned a value to "box0ffset" instead of "boxOffset". The bug was thankfully minor, and I obviously must have been smoking crack to make this typo, but it has happened and could have been avoided if I'd been using a good font. 3. I've seen C code (I think in an open source project) where the programmer typed something along the lines of "100l". He probably meant to type "100L" and just missed the SHIFT key. By this time, I'd switched to a font that had an "l" that was clearly distinct from a "1", but I imagine that I would have otherwise been utterly perplexed. These are probably not everyday examples. The circumstances in which confusion is possible are rare. But they do happen and are (in some sense) expensive. At the very least, it's a whole class of errors that's easily and cheaply avoided by choosing an attractive font that minimizes the opportunities for confusion. Why risk the frustration?
smhinsey 17y ago
I am a big fan of Envy Type R.
- anovaskulk 17y ago
  You probably mean Envy Code R? And yes, it's a great font. I wouldn't use any other.
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    haha, yeah, that is an embarrassing mixup. i even use it under linux and os x these days.
rbanffy 17y ago
Call me ancient, but I really miss the 3278, with its distinctive 6's and 9's. I never could find its original bitmaps, much less a vector font like it.
caffo 17y ago
Tried all of them, still using LuxiMono.. love it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas_aylott/294076124/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas_aylott/294076124/ http://wiki.macromates.com/Main/AlternativeFonts http://wiki.macromates.com/Main/AlternativeFonts
jballanc 17y ago
Also in the category of improved Vera family fonts is Espresso, which ships with the web editor of the same name (http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ http://macrabbit.com/espresso/).
grinich 17y ago
I've been using Panic Sans for a while. It ships with Coda and you can grab it out of the application package.
jussij 17y ago
I like Consolas, but when I first tried it I thought it was rubbish. It turns out the problem was my Windows box had Clear Type font smoothing disabled. So make sure you have Clear Type enabled: http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4449#4449 http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4449#4449
dhotson 17y ago
I used to use Bitstream Vera Sana Mono but I switched to using Liberation Mono, it was released for free by the red hat guys. https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ I'd recommend both, but I like Liberation Mono more.
projecktzero 17y ago
I used Anonymous for a while, but then I switched to Consolas. I'm not sure if Anonymous is free or not. One site wants to charge you for it, and another has it for free(no, not the Pirate Bay!).

68 points by danbenjamin 17y ago

Badger's Top 1 programming font: Something monospace. (Hmmm, I seem to have some time left over... should I review my choice of font, or just code something with my current choice?)

jasongullickson 17y ago

ProFont - what other font is easily readable down to 6pt?

joshuarr 17y ago
Deja Vu - my personal favorite.
benreesman 17y ago
upvoted because profont is simply lovely, but i can't get it to work reasonably on the mac. switched first to inconsolata, but i like consolas a little bit better.
- jasongullickson 17y ago
  I haven't tried it on the Mac yet only because I don't have a way to unstuff it w/o enduring that horrible stuffit website...
tremendo 17y ago
Andale Mono not only works great at small sizes, but also at bigger ones (14 & up) which ProFont does not (I have ProFontWindows which looks deformed at size 10, and annoyingly appears bolded at any bigger size than that).
Zev 17y ago
Why would you make code that small? I personally like to be able to read code, not show lots of it on screen that's illegible.

daeken 17y ago

No mention of Dina? That's a shame. I love Proggy, but Dina is much more readable IMO. (It's on the Proggy site as well)

ashleyw 17y ago

I love 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono'. I've tried tons of fonts, but always fall back on that. I use Ruby a lot, and it complements the language nicely…

bittersweet 17y ago
Indeed, I've been using this font since watching the railscasts by Ryan Bates and it's great. I was using the standard Monaco before. I don't know why but switching to a new font made me a happier programmer!
ashleyw 17y ago
I forgot to mention, I use it on OSX, where the anti-aliasing makes a big difference; when I tried it on Windows, it didn't look that great!

callahad 17y ago

For whatever reason, I can't stand how Windows or FreeType anti-alias Inconsolata. But on a Mac, it's dreamy. It is, however, somewhat annoying when I exuberantly recommend a typeface, only to see it become rather unusable when rendered by another system.

benreesman 17y ago
if you like inconsolata on the mac, try consolas which is very similar but in my opinion just a little bit more aesthetically pleasing.

moe 17y ago

In the past, we’ve had to decide between tiny monospace fonts or jagged edges. But today, modern operating systems do a great job of anti-aliasing, making monospace fonts look great at any size. It’s not 1990 anymore. Give your tired eyes a break and bump up that font size. No, thanks. All the anti-aliased screenshots in his post look blurry and some make me outright cringe. Also he missed my personal favorite: http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/ http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/

Semiapies 17y ago
That's a good-looking font, but I personally need a big visual distinction, like a slash or a dot, between O's and 0's. (I do like the distinction between l's and 1's, though - lots of fonts screw that up.)
- moe 17y ago
  Well, I think I would prefer a slashed zero for confidence, too, but can't say this has ever been an issue in my years of real world use.
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    That's why I said "I personally". :)
erlanger 17y ago
That font makes me cringe. It reminds me of when the screen resolution is too narrow, widening all text.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Same here. The letter-forms themselves look good, though. Maybe if the spacing between the letters were narrower? The kerning (that's what it's called, right?) seems unusually large, particularly for a fixed-width font.

chaosmachine 17y ago

Colsolas was the best thing to come out of Vista. In fact, it's the only thing I kept when I switched back to XP, and later, to OS X.

wolverian 17y ago
I used Consolas for ages, but now switched back to DejaVu Mono, mostly because it's thinner horizontally.

yan 17y ago

Pragmata is absolutely wonderful on OS X IMHO (http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragma.htm http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragma.htm) It's kinda pricey, but so beautiful when sized and anti-aliased right.

itodd 17y ago

Terminus is by far my favorite. I am disappointed it was not mentioned. http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font apt-get install xfonts-terminus

rkowalick 17y ago
Dedicated terminus user too!
bitwize 17y ago
The only real alternative to Terminus is LispM font: http://www.eurogaran.com/downloads/lispmfont/ http://www.eurogaran.com/downloads/lispmfont/ A similar appearance! The CADR was dreamy in many ways, even its screen font. Downside: only one size...
lsdkfjqoeiru 17y ago
I recently switched to Terminus, and I've really been enjoying it. None of the versions I could find worked well on OS X though, so I converted the BDF sources to dfont. If anyone is interested, I just tossed the file on github, http://github.com/deactivated/dfonts/tree http://github.com/deactivated/dfonts/tree.

spoondan 17y ago

By my reckoning, six of the ten have major flaws that make them completely unacceptable for use as a programming font. Courier, Profont, Consolas, and Incosolata all have insufficient distinctions between 'l' (lowercase L) and '1' (one). Droid Sans Mono has an 'O' (uppercase O) that can pass for '0' (zero). Perhaps by virtue of the font size, Proggy has a lowercase L that can pass for a vertical bar at a glimpse. If you look closely, Proggy's lowercase L looks like a one -- this is less of an issue because it is visually distinct from Proggy's one glyph, but I still don't like it.

lallysingh 17y ago
For day-to-day programming, why does l/1, O/0 matter? I usually don't see them in contexts where they could be confused.
- joeyo 17y ago
  Typos like these are some of the hardest to debug. More than once I've been at the point of pulling my hair out on some nonsensical error message that is fixed by simply retyping the line. Trust me, you don't want to waste your time on this one.
- spoondan 17y ago
  A few cases that have occurred over the years: 1. Working with inherited code, one of the original programmers had an identifier I believed was "el" (short for "element") but that was actually "e1" (presumably short for "element 1"). You don't know frustration until your compiler tells you "undefined identifier 'el'" when, by all appearances, there's nothing wrong with your code. Not only did I waste a couple of hours on this, but the stress probably shortened my life by a few hours, too. 2. Embarrassingly enough: For reasons that I don't understand, I have on a couple of occasions typed a zero where I meant to type an uppercase 'O'. I shipped Python code that had a bug in it because I assigned a value to "box0ffset" instead of "boxOffset". The bug was thankfully minor, and I obviously must have been smoking crack to make this typo, but it has happened and could have been avoided if I'd been using a good font. 3. I've seen C code (I think in an open source project) where the programmer typed something along the lines of "100l". He probably meant to type "100L" and just missed the SHIFT key. By this time, I'd switched to a font that had an "l" that was clearly distinct from a "1", but I imagine that I would have otherwise been utterly perplexed. These are probably not everyday examples. The circumstances in which confusion is possible are rare. But they do happen and are (in some sense) expensive. At the very least, it's a whole class of errors that's easily and cheaply avoided by choosing an attractive font that minimizes the opportunities for confusion. Why risk the frustration?

smhinsey 17y ago

I am a big fan of Envy Type R.

anovaskulk 17y ago
You probably mean Envy Code R? And yes, it's a great font. I wouldn't use any other.
- smhinsey 17y ago
  haha, yeah, that is an embarrassing mixup. i even use it under linux and os x these days.

rbanffy 17y ago

Call me ancient, but I really miss the 3278, with its distinctive 6's and 9's. I never could find its original bitmaps, much less a vector font like it.

caffo 17y ago

Tried all of them, still using LuxiMono.. love it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas_aylott/294076124/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas_aylott/294076124/ http://wiki.macromates.com/Main/AlternativeFonts http://wiki.macromates.com/Main/AlternativeFonts

jballanc 17y ago

Also in the category of improved Vera family fonts is Espresso, which ships with the web editor of the same name (http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ http://macrabbit.com/espresso/).

grinich 17y ago

I've been using Panic Sans for a while. It ships with Coda and you can grab it out of the application package.

jussij 17y ago

I like Consolas, but when I first tried it I thought it was rubbish. It turns out the problem was my Windows box had Clear Type font smoothing disabled. So make sure you have Clear Type enabled: http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4449#4449 http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4449#4449

dhotson 17y ago

I used to use Bitstream Vera Sana Mono but I switched to using Liberation Mono, it was released for free by the red hat guys. https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ I'd recommend both, but I like Liberation Mono more.

projecktzero 17y ago

I used Anonymous for a while, but then I switched to Consolas. I'm not sure if Anonymous is free or not. One site wants to charge you for it, and another has it for free(no, not the Pirate Bay!).