13 ms·
Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer
- jamesaguilar 13y agoIt's hard for me to imagine ever finding anything better than Ubuntu Mono, but for those who haven't found a love of their font-life, now might be a helpful time to relink to the one slant article I ever saw: http://www.slant.co/topics/67/~what-are-the-best-programming-fonts http://www.slant.co/topics/67/~what-are-the-best-programming...
- fingerprinter 13y agoSeconded. I used to use Menlo, then Incosolata. Ubuntu Mono is by far the absolute best available for programming. Love it!
- pdenya 13y agoStill prefer inconsolata at the moment, any particular feature of ubuntu mono that you feel puts it far ahead of others?
- fingerprinter 13y agoCan't say, just how it looks. It looks incredibly smooth and well thought out. I don't know, specifically. Just like how it looks.
- damien 13y agoThe letter l on it's own at small font sizes resembles the number 1 in other fonts too closely. In fact, my default sans font (DejaVu Sans) has the 1 shaped just like the Inconsolata l. I'm sure it's something you get used to but I personally prefer the style used in DejaVu Sans Mono or Ubuntu Mono, where the l shape can't be mistaken for anything else.
- tholex 13y agoThe italics are amazing - very visible and distinct from the regular font, making it a great tool for validation. E.g. it's very noticeable when a CSS rule is not italic all of a sudden (misspelled). It adds a nice layer on top of colors to distinguish between different states.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoThe lack of bold weight for inconsolata really kills its utility for me.
- aray 13y agoFYI Inconsolata was (also) designed by a programmer: http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html It has a very different look and feel though.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rustc 13y agoDon't know if it's only me, but I keep changing/cycling fonts and color schemes of my terminal every few weeks or so. Currently using Source Code Pro with ZenBurn. Will give Ubuntu Mono a try tonight.
- bluedino 13y agoI resist making any changes to my fonts/themes. I can spend hours sitting there tweaking them instead of just sticking with something I know (Menlo + Monokai for instance) and then just getting to work.
- quaffapint 13y agoubuntu mono doesn't seem to scale well, at least on my tests in notepad++ on windows. Once I get to 12 point it starts acting like it's bolded. Source Code Pro and Consolas don't seem to have this problem. I've always used Consolas since it's been out, but after seeing Source Code Pro, that does seem easier to read.
- chrismorgan 13y agoUbuntu Mono renders superbly in Ubuntu, but I agree with you that it doesn't render particularly well on Windows; when on Windows, I sadly go back to DejaVu Sans Mono.
- endijs 13y agoI like Ubuntu Mono too, but only in terminal. However for IDE I cant find anything better than Consolas.
- reidrac 13y agoI'm using DejaVu Sans Mono and for me it looks cleaner on 11pt than Ubuntu Mono, but you're right: that article is amazing. I'm surprised how close is DejaVu Sans Mono to Source Code Pro.
- akurilin 13y agoHave been using DejaVu Sans Mono for years, it's fantastic and really easy on the eyes.
- cheald 13y agoI'm quite partial to Liberation Mono, myself. But in looking at it side-by-side, it's very similar to Ubuntu Mono. Liberation: http://cl.ly/image/2y2E3m211H1V/Image%202013-09-09%20at%2010.27.25%20AM.png http://cl.ly/image/2y2E3m211H1V/Image%202013-09-09%20at%2010... Ubuntu: http://cl.ly/image/000u0s3E2b2V/Image%202013-09-09%20at%2010.30.42%20AM.png http://cl.ly/image/000u0s3E2b2V/Image%202013-09-09%20at%2010...
- nly 13y agoQuite often use Monaco myself, it has a very similar look to Ubuntu Mono but less seems less 'rigid' Anonymous Pro is another excellent choice, very crisp.
- D9u 13y agoI've been using gohufont for most of this year, and it looks better on my system than it does on that website.
- StuieK 13y agoCan you fix up the screenshot on Slant for me? It's not rendering properly on my computer.
- hobb0001 13y agoI'm not sure I'd care to code with this: http://i.imgur.com/Pu4FHi4.png http://i.imgur.com/Pu4FHi4.png I like to code with about a 9 point font, in order to maximize the amount of code per screen without going too far into the illegible. At that size, the proportions of even a single pixel are large enough to make any anti-aliasing annoying. You lose the sharp contrast that every good font needs to have along its edges. Bitmap fonts are my favorites.
- CatMtKing 13y agoAt that size I would disable anti-aliasing in .fonts.conf. It still looks legible, though I wouldn't code in it (much less any font at that size).
- jamesaguilar 13y agoThat isn't what it looks like on my computer. I suspect this image has been resampled because even aggressive hinting wouldn't generate such rough forms at 11 pt.
- userulluipeste 13y ago"Bitmap fonts are my favorites." Mine too. Dina is my font of choice for now, also because it does a good job "to maximize the amount of code per screen without going too far into the illegible", among other things. If you code just with ASCII, maybe you'd like to try it if you haven't already.
- mzs 13y agoThanks, Source Code Pro looks pretty good to me.
- spacebe4time 13y agoSecond that. This is what a professionally design font for programmers look like. I am going to design "a washing machine by programmer for programmers" and hope it doesn't explode into someone's face when it's plugged into an electrical outlet.
- Fuzzwah 13y agoMy go to is Bitstream Vera Mono http://www.dafont.com/bitstream-vera-mono.font http://www.dafont.com/bitstream-vera-mono.font
- sigkill 13y agoAm I the only one who likes OCR A Extended?
- rhengles 13y agoThe most confortable font for me is Lucida Console.
- lechevalierd3on 13y agoit look nice but without download link, I kinda wonder what this post doing here...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- donut2d 13y agoLooks interesting. Really wish I could download it now. I definitely want to see it when it's done, but how will know when that is? If I had even a beta version to play with I'm much more likely to remember to check for updates later. That said, I'm really happy to see more programming fonts! I love Inconsolata[1] and used to use it for everything. However, recently I've been using Source Code Pro[2] and can't break myself away from it. [1]: http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html [2]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/
- the_french 13y agoI this is a really font, and I appreciate the clear set of rules and guides that help establish the coherence of the font. However, I dislike the overall appearance and I think I'll be sticking the the default Sublime font (Menlo) which I have no trouble reading and is more aesthetically pleasing.
- astrodust 13y agoLack of a bold weight is also making this non-viable.
- k_bx 13y ago"m" doesn't seems nice http://pcaro.es/i/Hermit_10pt.png http://pcaro.es/i/Hermit_10pt.png
- VLM 13y agoI studied the Lorem Ipsum (thats why its there) and the "es" doesn't look so hot either next to each other. Or was that "se" hard to tell. The designer should be proud that the worst problems that can be found by picky people who stare at screens for 12 hours a day are relatively minor and easily fixable. Its a good programming font. Once its an "apt-get" away (and what are its licensing terms? I must have missed that part) I'll probably deploy it and use it.
- pcrh 13y agoThe upper-case S looks like it is about to topple forwards.
- mzs 13y agoI really like the m, not fuzzy and I can tell right away it's an m. To me it's not so important how pretty it is as much as how easy it is to tell what is what. Lower case k looks really good to me too, too often that and lower case h are sort of fuzzy and hard to distinguish in small size.
- dkersten 13y agoI can't stand the k, it looks confusing to me at a glance for some reason...
- eksith 13y agoI like it. There's a hint of Consolas in there, I feel along with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
- RamiK 13y agoVery nice looking glyphs. Notes: * I think "sadipscing" shows a minor kerning issue after the "i"s in the 14pt example image. Or is it the monospace's odd number of pixels issue? * Similarly the "k"s. * Maybe you should substitute the python example with a C one with curly brackets and semicolons... Anyhow, a very good looking font.
- kenbellows 13y agoAt first glance, I really like it. It's very friendly and relaxing.
- brianpgordon 13y agoIs the shading effect that is visible on the glyphs a part of the font or due to some postprocessing done by his font renderer configuration? I think it looks rather bad, but I've always disabled Cleartype et al.
- krainboltgreene 13y agoLooks pretty good at lower sized fonts, but I regularly work in 24pt font size and it looks terrible at that size. Too bad.
- shubb 13y agoI usually code around 10pt - more would mean I couldn't fit enough code on the screen... Are you talking about coding at 24pt? I'm interested why you'd do that?
- liveoneggs 13y agoto save your eyes
- VLM 13y agoScreen DPI varies widely and usually isn't correctly configured if it is at all. My main coding desktop is a little small at 14pt and probably should be a big larger. This is a pretty small monitor holds just a little more than a piece of physical paper and is driven natively at 1280x1024. Someone with a "living room TV" sized mere 720px monitor is going to have a completely different perspective on what is too big or too small. This is aside from the "my classes are 5000 lines long" problem which may or may not exist and may or may not be required by peculiar exceptional business needs anyway (required as opposed to being a style "problem") And to add yet another orthogonal dimension to the problem, I code full screen using awesome as a WM... I use all of my screen for code except two text line equivalents at the top. I can see how someone who is tab bar'd menu'd windowed down at a tiny little fraction of a monitor might need a smaller font just to see anything. I've seen screens decorated up to the point that the actual content only has a post card sized space to work in, surrounded by massive unproductive clutter. They're going to need a tiny font indeed...
- shubb 13y agoI don't know if you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't avoid eclipse. The tabbarmenuwindow problem is truly horrible.
- Rickasaurus 13y agoSeems a bit too wide for my taste, and all the characters seem slightly shifted to the left.
- gocard 13y agoWTF is wrong with Courier New? Haha, just kidding.
- collyw 13y agoCan you explain to a font ignoramus like me what is wrong with it?
- Grue3 13y agol and 1 look very similar. Aside from that, I think it's a great font.
- gocard 13y agoIt's a serif font, which makes it noisier in my opinion. It's also a relatively thin font, making it more difficult to read.
- leokun 13y agoThe l has a serif, but other characters do not.
- gocard 13y agoOn Courier New? Mmmm, a lot of the characters have serifs.
- gocard 13y agoCompare the fonts on this page. Courier gets muddied when it's bolded, and feels a tad thin when not, in my opinion: http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts The last 3 fonts listed on the page are really strong for programming.
- VLM 13y agoI worked at a printing company a long time ago (although in IT not as a graphics artist), and its a slightly rewarmed serif font thats about 200 years old and designed for newspaper levels of contrast (thats what it was used for two centuries ago). If you're going to stick with serifs try something like Georgia which is also a warmed over serif font, but somewhat More warmed over than Courier New. If you want a pleasant holy war right up there with debates about wifi emissions and if religion is true, try suggesting the modern printing and computing world should stick in the sans serif families. There's plenty of journal articles on both sides, etc. Most debate about font shape is meaningless without discussing color scheme. Grayish blurry-oish text on light yellow medium-large size is what the Slab Serif families were originally invented for two centuries ago ... what a surprise they'll look bad compared to a sans family font (or most anything else) on a pure white backlit background with pitch black letters. Note that most end users don't really care. The TV/monitor is covered with 1/4 inch of dust and cat fur, they're reading printed matter nearly in the dark and they don't really care what the color temp of their light source is other than it being the cheapest. You're talking about optimizing in the decimal places for the snobs not basic legibility for the masses.
- crazygringo 13y ago> a font for programmers, by a programmer > Every glyph was carefully planned and calculated, according to defined principles and rules. For this reason, Hermit is coherent and regular. I hate to say this, but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer. Good font design is not about calculations or following principled rules; it's about what looks good to the eye, and it takes a tremendous amount of skill and experience. And to my eye, at least, the font is incredibly difficult to read. It literally looks like a font designed by an engineer for a plotter, not something designed for the human eye or legibility. Good fonts follow intuitive rhythms, they focus on word shapes (not just letter shapes), natural curves, there's a tremendous amount of subtlety that goes into achieving a proper sense of balance between letterforms, and a lot of things are actually different between letters/curves/etc. so that they look the same to the eye in the end. Even with "utilitarian" fonts like monospace ones. "Carefully planned and calculated" is a great recipe for building a bridge, but not for building a font, unfortunately.
- geophile 13y agoRespect. All that said, this font looks pretty good to me as a programmer, (12 point version, at least), and I'm going to try it out when it's available. I've been looking for a good font to use in emacs on OS X and have never found one that I liked. (On Linux, my preference is 9x15.)
- sdkmvx 13y agoIf you like the X11 Fixed fonts, check out http://monkey.org/~marius/beautiful-fixed-width-fonts-for-osx.html http://monkey.org/~marius/beautiful-fixed-width-fonts-for-os..., which provides 6x13, 7x14, 9x15 and 10x20 in OS X dfont format.
- Freaky 13y agohttp://www.twoevils.org/html/files.html http://www.twoevils.org/html/files.html has 6x13 in TrueType format, which I'm using for Windows console and Sublime Text.
- richardlblair 13y agoHey man, I give you full props for making a font. Not an easy thing to do, especially for a programmer. That said, I find it hard to look at and hard to visually parse. Keep at it though, I have faith that you will hit that sweet spot eventually.
- chasing 13y agoI don't think it's perfect, but I respect the attempt. One quick note, though. One header in that write-up boldly states: "I am not a designer." Have some self-esteem! You're totally a designer. You're taking the steps that real designers [should] take when creating functional designs. You have design principles and goals and are aiming to satisfy those with a little ingenuity and creativity. You're a designer. Own it!
- lowboy 13y agoI appreciate your positive attitude toward expanding one's skillset, and I agree that he should remove "I am not a designer". But I believe the creator when he says that he is not a designer, and I don't think it would be appropriate for us to say that he is a designer at this point. I like cooking, and I can make some tasty meals, but I am not a chef. I like drawing things in my notebook here and there, but I am not an artist. I enjoy the occasional minor home improvement/repair project (renter) and woodworking challenge, but I am not a contractor nor a woodworker. I've been making web sites and apps for a decade now, and I am a developer. I've been taking photos for a good part of that decade as well and I am a photographer (mostly amateur, though I have made some money from it). Declaring yourself "a ______" in this way implies that you have achieved some level of experience, or at least that you are devoting or have devoted a significant chunk of time to the pursuit. I just don't know if the creator has put in this time, or considers it a significant enough pursuit to call himself a designer.
- chasing 13y agoI get what you're saying, but disagree. "Chef" kind of already means "professional cook" and "contractor" is kind of a legal term when it comes to construction, but if you draw in your notebook, you're definitely an artist. You may not be a good one! And you may not be professional. But who cares? This is why we have qualifiers: "I'm an award-winning chef." "I'm a world-renowned artist." "I'm a professional designer." Of course you shouldn't go around calling yourself a doctor just because you once successfully took an aspirin to get rid of a headache. But when it comes to creative endeavors, I think more people should be proud of the creative act itself, even if it's not great on some objective scale. And I wish more people would attempt casual acts of creativity. And I think those who do deserve to wear the title of "artist, "designer," "cook," "painter," "writer," or whatever.
- Dirlewanger 13y agoWhat's the font of the website's title? That font is ten times better than the showcased font.
- sp332 13y agoIt's Roboto.
- antihero 13y agoPersonally I'm a fan of using bitmap fonts - currently I use Tamzen for my shell/editor: https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font
- anonymous 13y agoOoh, very nice. I like bitmap fonts too, but I use Terminus and GNU Unifont (fallback for glyphs not in Terminus) myself.
- m_ram 13y agoI use Terminus too. To me, nothing is more readable [1] than Terminus [2] with the solarized-dark [3] color scheme. [1] http://i.imgur.com/J7M22rc.png http://i.imgur.com/J7M22rc.png [2] http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net [3] http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
- antihero 13y agoI used to use Terminus, but IIRC Tamzen had a nice size for high DPI monitors, whereas Terminus felt too big or too small.
- geophile 13y agoThat font gives me DOS and Windows 3.11 flashbacks.
- Pxtl 13y agoIn 8 point font it reminds me a lot of the fonts you'd see in old low-res (320x200) videogames. I didn't look in close, but the corners even looked darkened like you'd see in those sorts of fonts.
- bluedino 13y agoIt's very 'square', it just doesn't look right to me. Not sure if if it's the spacing or if it's just too 'wide'.
- tuananh 13y agois it just me or i find it really hard to read/look at it. reading speed reduced like more than half.
- grannyg00se 13y agoLooks good to me but I think I would prefer if the cross bars (eg: on t and f) actually crossed the vertical lines a little bit. Also that upper hook on the f looks somewhat comical. Great job though. I could definitely put this font to use without feeling a strong urge to change it.
- ajanuary 13y agoMaking the crossbars cross the vertical lines would also allow the the character to be more centered. At the moment at smaller sizes you get a noticeable gap between the 't' and the 'a' in 'potato'.
- D9u 13y agoI think that there should have been example usage of the new font within the web page rather than a link to an image... That said, I like the font, so am also dismayed that there is no download available. Which formats are going to be released?
- icecreampain 13y agoThere's no download link. That means the font doesn't exist. And what grinds my gears even more: by submitting NOTHING the submitter has earned by hate and the maker of the font, no matter how nice the font may or may not be, will ensure that I will never mention the font to anyone. And if anyone dares name the font they will be getting an earful in return. Submitting garbage (non-existent garbage) like that is like promising to do something... later. And never delivering.
- bluedino 13y agoAre there any fonts designed specifically for Retina displays yet? Or does that just imply 'no font smoothing and large sizes'?
- wreckimnaked 13y agoI'm a Ricty user, but Hermit looks really good, nice job! Also, loved that jellybean colorscheme.
- moondowner 13y agoWhat about Cyrillic support? One of the main reasons why PT Mono and DejaVu Sans Mono are my favorites...
- tzakrajs 13y agoInconsistent kerning is my biggest complaint when attempting to read code with this font. The t and f bump to the left is jarring.
- ratherhost 13y agoBitstream Vera Sans is better than Hermit IMHO, since it already exists and has no 'Cons', only 'Pros'. Consolas and Bitstream Vera Sans are unbeatable!
- dubcanada 13y agoTry Source Code Pro, by Adobe.
- smrtinsert 13y agoRelease soon! Really excited about this.
- Kurtz79 13y ago"but a font by a programmer makes as much sense as a database library by a font designer." "a bridge for pedestrians, by a pedestrian". I wonder why when a designer kind of guy tries to get into programming he generally gets encouraged and when a programmer tries to do some artsy/design stuff he gets slammed down ?
- jlgreco 13y ago"I wonder why when a designer kind of guy try to get into programming he generally gets encouraged and when a programmer tries to do some artsy/design stuff he gets slammed down ?" Because, despite frequent claims to the contrary, this industry/community/profession is actually pretty damn inclusive.
- cgranade 13y agoAs long as you aren't female. http://t.co/PFuwmChLkQ http://t.co/PFuwmChLkQ
- dubcanada 13y agoBesides picking apart small issues like the u and m and proportions, I think my main issue seems to be that your website does not showcase the font anywhere besides screenshots at the very bottom. People don't care about your story, updates, information, etc (as much). They want to see your font. Make it shown at the very top so I don't have to scroll 3 pages to see a screenshot link. Take a look at how other font people showcase their fonts, something like a nice picture like http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.... is all you need. But showcase it! Overall though, I actually really like it. I think I'll give it a try when it comes out.
- fragsworth 13y ago> Besides picking apart small issues like the u and m and kerning, Kerning? It's a monospace font. You don't kern monospace fonts.
- dubcanada 13y agoWrong word, I meant proportions. I don't like some of the character heights and proportions.
- nkuttler 13y agoMore open source fonts are great! But as somebody who doesn't know too much about fonts my first thought was.. I could as well code in Comic Sans. I don't mean belittle any work, it's just what crossed my mind.
- perlpimp 13y agoOk I hate being likbaited into wondering about a page hunting for a download link, only for a link to be bogus and then there is no font. You know what I mean. I also like fonts that look great without anti-aliasing. There are no examples of that there. And that is where it is the hard work begins(in making fonts). Font kerning is a sucha nitpicky process. Especially when you consider many font sizes and have excellent rendering for each on of them (without antialiasing.) There is no opinion about the font from me - there as there is no font and I can't try that. Probably better compose a font and then ask for opinion.
- pekk 13y agoWhen you release this, please release source files under a permissive license (like inconsolata has) so that others can make their own variations.
- csense 13y agoThis looks like a monospace version of Comic Sans to me! Is this a joke?
- fyolnish 13y agoKind of looks like a bitmap font that had hq2x applied to it
- delinka 13y agoI applaud this effort. It's always good to step out of your area of expertise and try something else. It's how lots of people got started programming. (e.g. "I was a loan officer and was tired of calculating amortization schedules on my HP calculator...") It's even better that he's documenting the experience. Too bad he's doing it publicly because the first comment I see on HN is insulting criticism. Geez, people, you can't even download the font yet to see if it even works for you! And he's said it's not done yet. Cut the guy some slack.
- xuhu 13y agoPlease make the characters taller (h/w ratio), they seem a little fat. Otherwise I like how it looks overall.
- ChrisArchitect 13y agoProggy fonts, swear by em noticed the domain is expired tho.....doh
- quarterto 13y agoThere's a .tgz of all the variants and formats on the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/proggyfonts/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/proggyfonts/
- spacecadet 13y agoit is subjective. non-argument.
- thezilch 13y agoA strong contender to Proggy Clean or ProFont.
- kaplejon 13y agoThis font will drive a dyslexic programmer mad. I want to like this font. I love the theory and craft behind its creation. And it will no doubt work for some people (just reading through the comments that is obvious). But from the first view, and at all pt sizes, something felt a little off-kilter. It took me longer to read through the lorem ipsum and other sample text. I had to focus more at the individual characters, which is perhaps exactly the opposite of the goal. And I think this was even magnified by the monospacing. This font is clean. Nicely designed. But again, it will not work for a dyslexic programmer. The rules became restrictive, forced a little too much individual, systematic design, without looking at the whole. What I mean is that too many characters are weighted in such a way that it fights the character's basic orientation. The '8', '9', 'e', 'a', and many others, pull themselves down. I 'feel' them swinging on their axis and hanging upside down. I feel other letter's rotating around a vertical axis. The letters feel unbalanced, sitting uneasy on one axis or another. The characters were so over-engineered, I'm not sure they have soul. But there are many fonts out there, and just because this will not work for some people isn't reason enough to say it won't anybody. Kudos to the effort and experimentation.
- chengiz 13y agoI do not like the Courier style "m" with unequal gap. Also the t and f bar not crossing on the left. Makes the gaps look large with the succeeding letter, notice potato at small point. The x-height is too small, makes some letters undifferentiable at small size. Also if it's programming, need more examples. For example ( next to <.
- drivers99 13y agoI agree about the cross-stroke. I have to do a double-take every time every time I see a 't'. Also, missing the first downstroke of 'n' and 'r' throws me off ('m' less so).
- bhz 13y agoI, for one, really like his use of potato. Also, thanks for sharing. I disagree with any people saying engineers can't make fonts. It's like saying engineers can't possibly have any other skills. Font away!
- Raphmedia 13y agoI think it works very well. I can read it with no effort at all at 8pt!
- jgreen10 13y agoTo me, Consolas is the only programming font that looks natural, as if it isn't even monospace.
- nijiko 13y agoEh, this font could use a little TLC on some of the glyphs. However, it is easily readable and looks fine at 10 pt.
- welder 13y agoLooks ok, but how is this better than Consolas or Anonymous Pro fonts? Here's a screenshot of my Vim using Anonymous Pro: https://github.com/alanhamlett/Alan-vimrc#screenshot https://github.com/alanhamlett/Alan-vimrc#screenshot
- mabbo 13y agoThis font will make engineer-types happy, because it's been made in methods that engineers understand and like. Reminds me of Soylent- we don't need to listen to experts in that field, because this is a person I can relate to just going ahead and doing it. I'm not saying this guy should stop- quite the opposite, please explore, have fun with this, learn. It's the most wonderful thing a person can do. I don't want to criticize him for trying, I want to criticize us for loving it. Yes, myself included. We're falling for the same trap that is used in those ads about how a stay at home mom came up with a new skin treatment. People want to believe that they are brilliant, that they are right. When they see someone just like them going against the grain, they want to believe that person is correct. So the next time you see a post that says "Made by an ENGINEER" and it isn't something an engineer normally makes, do a quick "%s/engineer/stay at home mom/g".
- fournm 13y agoI like the look of this--not necessarily for my daily coding font (Source Code Pro, lately, but Consolas works in a pinch) though it would definitely help for any presentation that needs to display code. It just looks like a good presentation font to me, with how clean it is at the larger sizes. Might be my love of 8-bit gaming readable fonts, though.
- McUsr 13y agoHello. I can't tell if this looks ugly or not, before I try it, I really can't relate to the aestethics, before I have tried to use it for a while. What really matters most to me, is how perceivable the source code becomes with it, that is with what ease I read it. I look forward to the download. :)
- rhythmvs 13y agoWhen hackers start designing typefaces — lovely! But nothing new under the sun: Don Knuth worked together with Hermann Zapf (e.g. on the design/development of AMS Euler). Before that legendary collaboration, Knuth worked alone on his Computer Modern Family — which is, by all means, a feat of clever programming in ways designers never could think/dream of (parameterized design variables, etc.). But Knuth eventually realised he needed the help of a vetted calligrapher and type designer like Zapf to get the best out of his software — and improve on it (Knuth’s account on the collaboration is a great read). A lot can be said (and has been said) on design principles, objective geometry vs optical subjectivism, quantifiability, measurability and programmability in and of type design. Adrian Frutiger probably goes farthest in this theoretical thinking. Anyhow: I fully support hackers who engage in typography and type design. I fancied both the designer/developer of Hermit, as the HN community in general might be interested to hear the opinion of the type design pro’s. They’ve had their dedicated forum since 2000. I cross-posted the link to this thread on Typohile.com in the hope typophiles over there would want to share their views. If you’re interested, it’s here: http://typophile.com/node/106204 http://typophile.com/node/106204
- lectrick 13y agoUgh. This is terrible. Use Anonymous or Anonymous Pro. http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
- lnanek2 13y agoHonestly, I work mostly in Java, and almost never see anything that has to be lined up based on character width. So I turned off mono long ago and just use the best font I can find, not some mono variant.
- x0n 13y agoUnfortunately this looks like to me like a really incongruous terminal font one would see on a computer screen in the 80s. I wish he would qualify his goals by explaining what he didn't like about all of the other fonts he listed.
- blt 13y agoIMO, the rough shapes of the letters are too similar. It's not very legible.
- hoov 13y agoI feel the need to include the obligatory link to PragmataPro: http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragmatapro.htm http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragmatapro.htm. I couldn't be happier with this font, and feel like it was worth every penny. It did take some time to adjust to the narrow width of the characters, but it looks totally natural to me now. I also love that the author keeps updating the font regularly. In particular, adding in the Powerline glyphs was great.
- swah 13y agoI kinda like it when big, but then when I set it small, I change to a bitmap font like 6x13 and it looks better :(
- skrebbel 13y agoI find the code really easy to read, but I find the comments and prose really difficult to read. I'm not sure whether that's good, but I lean towards "no". Nevertheless, nice project! Don't let the naysayers hold you back; programmers can get into font design just like font designers can get into programming.
- tantalor 13y ago> You BLEW UP all my monthly bandwidth. This is why static content should be served on GitHub, or a similar zero-cost and unlimited-bandwidth host.
- RexRollman 13y agoNice article. Personally, I am a big fan of Tamsyn. When I installed Debian earlier today, it was the first thing I downloaded after Xorg.
- nick2021 13y agoI'm sorry. I don't like it.
- SkyMarshal 13y agoLooks good, please do repost when you've got some downloads ready.
- mistercow 13y agoThis looks nice, although it might be a little wide for my tastes. One feature I would love to have (for some reason) in a programming font would be ligatures for multi-character operators. For example, >= would turn into ≥, != into ≠, && into ∧, -> into →, => into ⇒, etc. Obviously all of these would have to have extra spacing to preserve the monospaceness (although I'm not sure really how crucial that is, as long as you don't go into fractional character widths).
- sagarjauhari 13y ago"Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. " Argh, couldn't even catch a glimpse
- SCdF 13y agoSo the server has been crushed under the boot of hacker news. Does anyone have a cached copy?
- ratsimihah 13y agoDoS.
- hawkw 13y agoLooks like we crashed his webhost. :(
- ankurpatel 13y agoThe page is dead. Does anyone have the updated link?
- shellehs 13y agoNow it's 404 the site said: The server can not find the requested page: * /p/hermit (port 80)* Please forward this error screen to pcaro.es's WebMaster.
- samograd 13y agoI'm liking OCRA lately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A_font https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A_font apt-get install fonts-ocr-a
- Inetgate 13y agoIt seems that link is 404 not found. Is it changed?
- jlgaddis 13y agoLooked great on the web page so I downloaded it, installed it, and set my (XFCE) terminal to use it. It looks like crap, for some reason, and I quickly switched back to my normal font.
- jkcl 13y agoIt's ugly. Let's move on.
- ansible 13y agoLooking at the 14-point sample, the weight of the lower-case 'y' is too light compared to the neighbours. Same for the 'v' for that matter. I don't much care for the '9' either, but I can't tell you exactly why. Good luck!