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It seems to me that "the perfect typeface" would:
0) Be TrueType
1) Be fixed-width
2) Be legible in my chosen point size* (in Visual Studio)
3A) 0 and O easily distinguishable (preferably slashed zero)
3B) Uppercase I and lowercase L easily distinguishable
3C) Lowercase L and the digit 1 easily distinguishable
4) Have glyphs for "all formatting marks" (in Word)
5) Be available from Microsoft
6) Be sans serif (except for the uppercase I)
7) Be usable in a DOS box
(In that approximate order.)
* I use 8 point, you are welcome to choose a larger size
0 1 2 3A 3B 3C 4 5 6 7
Courier New X X X X X X
Lucida Console X X X X X X X X X
Consolas X X X X X X X Looks OK at 10 point, bad at 8 and 12
ProggyCleanSZ X X X X X X X Unreadable at 8 and 10, OK at 12
ProggySquareSZ X X X X X X Unreadable at 8 and 10, OK at 12
Added:
Andale Mono X X X X X X X ? X
Anonymous X X X X X X X 7 point
Bitstream Vera X X X X X X X X
Envy Code R X X X X X X X OK at 8 and 12, better at 10
Onuava X X X X X X Mostly readable, percent sign in particular is troublesome
I think I'll try Lucida Console for a while and see how it goes.
Well that lasted about five minutes... In VS and Notepad the == runs together into one long equal sign (also combinations like mm). I may need to add another criterion above.
modified on Thursday, July 3, 2008 2:57 PM
modified 6-Aug-23 13:46pm.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: ProggyCleanSZ X X X X X X X Unreadable at 8 and 10, OK at 12
I use ProggyTinySZ at size 8, same as ProggyCleanSZ but optimised for size 8.
Simon
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I'll take a look.
No joy still unreadable (on my system at least) below 12 point.
Proggie small as well.
modified on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 10:37 AM
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This is what the author of the proggy fonts writes about ProggyTiny:
"Real programmers use Proggy Tiny. Proggy Tiny is well-proportioned and is the smallest programming font I could come up with while maintaining distinctive characters and good readability.[...]
Use at point size 9 (bitmap font), 12 (truetype), or 16 (mac truetype)
The bitmap .fon version of this font includes 2 font files. One is the ANSI extended version, and the other is OEM extended. The latter is a console font and can be selected in console applications on Windows machines."
So the bitmap-version will get the two points for console use and containing all characters, but loose one for not being truetype.
But it may get an extra point for being almost your prefered size.
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. Douglas Adams, "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"
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Thanks.
The non-TT ProggyTiny looks good in VS (on my system).
I'd have to figure how to use it in a DOS box (only "Raster Fonts" and "Lucida Console" are listed) to see if it fills that role.
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I changed my color settings so that numbers should up with a light blue background, that helps with the 0 O thing, but doesn't help when it's in a string.
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Or when printed in black.
Or in Notepad.
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I really wonder if so few people use the original Courier that it hasn't been added as an option. I still use it, will always do. I tried pretty much all other fonts, but none works for me.
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In my opinion, Courier looks horrible with ClearType turned on. I just tried it in VS2008 and the font looked all jagged and hardly readable.
(Yeah I know, some people find ClearType horrible in general)
regards
modified 12-Sep-18 21:01pm.
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Like me... maybe it's just my TFT, but I can't stand ClearType at all. I prefer things being sharp, not blurred and anti-aliased like hell.
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Me too, clear type just annoys me. Always has, on several different monitors. CRT & LCD.
Simon
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WTF? Don't you people care about your eyesight at all.
Wow, I'm truly surprised at that.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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my coworker wondered why I added "ones to his code". Some range-limiting code, and true enough, I "changed the 4 to a 41, and 10 to a 101".
He had a closer look, and figured out the l is just one pixel away from the 1
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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Fonts are (or should be) critically important to programmers.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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warning CS0078: The 'l' suffix is easily confused with the digit '1' -- use 'L' for clarity
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Someting I somehow can't get used to - since I am used to REAL fonts
Turning on Warning level 4 would probably kill that project, anyway.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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Hi,
I'm wondering, whats wrong with Courier New? I'm using that one.
Thanks!
It is said that the most complex structures built by mankind are software systems. This is not generally appreciated because most people cannot see them. Maybe that's a good thing because if we saw them as buildings, we'd deem many of them unsafe.
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Programmers fonts that are designed specifically for programming are very careful to provide easily distinguishable characteristics between easily confused numbers and letters.
If you compare a font like Consolas against Courier New and try typing in 0Oo or 1l you will see the difference clearly.
Consolas is designed to be clearly readable when viewing source code, to see a comparison of Consolas and Courier check this out:
http://spellcoder.com/blogs/bashmohandes/archive/2006/06/03/133.aspx[^]
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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The comment at the bottom of that link is hillarious!
Just gave Consolas a shot, and thought it was a little harder on my eyes than Courier New.
Oh, well, to each his own...
- S
50 cups of coffee and you know it's on!
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Steve Echols wrote: Oh, well, to each his own...
Certainly but when you code over a thousand lines a day or have to look at several thousand a day when doing updates etc I think it's critical to choose something that you are absolutely certain is the easiest to read and the quickest to comprehend, not just what you're used to.
People quickly get used to anything if some time is taken; best to get used to what is best. Courier New to me, at least for programming, is not designed at all with either of those goals in mind and the faded washed out look of the text is dangerous at best to my eyesight.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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I think I mostly found the line spacing a little tight. For me white space is the most critical thing, so my eye's aren't distracted (if that makes any sense). If things are too close together, my eyes jump around to much, and that's even more draining.
John C wrote: best to get used to what is best
But "best" is purely subjective, so my best is better than your best!
- S
50 cups of coffee and you know it's on!
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Steve Echols wrote: I think I mostly found the line spacing a little tight. For me white space is the most critical thing, so my eye's aren't distracted (if that makes any sense). If things are too close together, my eyes jump around to much, and that's even more draining.
That makes sense but there are many other programming specific fonts out there, wouldn't hurt to have a look at them, I'd be climbing the walls if I had to suffer through Courier New for more than 5 minutes programming, it's just not at all easy on the eyes, all faded and spidery and ambiguous when it comes to many letters and numbers.
Steve Echols wrote: But "best" is purely subjective
In this matter I couldn't disagree more but I also couldn't care less what font you use so whatever floats your boat!
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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I agree completely. I tried Consolas, and my first thought was "Oh dear God!" It sucked completely with the "standard" smoothing I have setup. I tried clear type, and it did look better for this font and I probably could have gotten used to it, though I didn't see it as any better than Courier New that I'm used to - except that I think clear type looks like crap everywhere else it is used. I also tried it without any smoothing at all - wow is it bad there.
I do think that Courier New on a white background is very hard to read - but I switched to a silver background ages ago and haven't looked back. With that background, Courier New looks good (IMHO). I've never come across a problem with the whole 0Oo or 1l thing before (in my 9+ yrs of programming), so I don't see a huge push for a different font just for that reason. I will try some others though, just to see what else is out there (the "Envy Code R" font looked pretty nice).
-----
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
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Vineas wrote: I agree completely.
Ditto! I tried Consolas and it looked terrible! Personally I like my eyes and that font hurt them.
Vineas wrote: I switched to a silver background ages ago
And here I thought I was the only one. I switched my background years ago, because staring at a white screen for hours at a time is hard on the eyes. Every now and then I find a program, editor/whatever, that has the white background set in concrete, which is very irritating .
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."Edsger Dijkstra
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John C wrote: when you code over a thousand lines a day
Really?? Its a lot of code I think to write each day.
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