

Input: Fonts for Code and Data - fallat
http://input.fontbureau.com/

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seanmcdirmid
I've played around with typography in the programming environment I'm
building, here are some of the experiments I ran:

[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/liveprogramming...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/projects/liveprogramming/typography.aspx)

That was about a year ago, what I have now is a bit more tame.

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melloclello
This is amazing, I wish programming was more like this.

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seanmcdirmid
Thanks. I hope to release an OSS version by the end of this summer.

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yoklov
I'm not against it in principal, but leaving alignment to the editor sounds
like the kind of thing that could be coding standard unfriendly (unless it
were done quite well, or was solely visual).

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Retra
It is just far easier to use a monospaced font than to implement a whole
tabbing system in every editor you'd want to use. And the alignment needs can
vary by language and application.

That's why it is so nice to work in a grid: you can align things however you
like for any purpose. You don't have to rewrite someone else's parser or build
a plugin to properly format an ad-hoc table in a comment.

" _If source code editors can highlight syntax, they could also interpret tabs
and syntax to create true, adjustable columns of text._ "

Yeah, but they don't.

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seanmcdirmid
Oh but they could. Are programmers condemned to an eternity monospace
typewriter hell because we are too lazy to build better editors? Will we be
able to upgrade to proportional fonts before the singularity occurs and
programming becomes obsolete anyways?

I've been proportional for about 3 years now; once you go with better
typography you can't really go back.

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Retra
Yes, we probably are condemned. For the same reason that mathematicians are
condemned to know how to add and subtract, even though one could achieve the
same results using a more general method.

Monospace is just simpler. We use it in consoles, and they aren't going away
or being revolutionized. And if you want to write a new text editor, you will
probably end up supporting monospace behavior before proportional simply
because it is such a simple and flexible algorithm.

And in the end, the only reason to use proportional font is for style and a
marginal increase in readability.

So it's not a matter of laziness, but of efficiency and design fundamentals.

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seanmcdirmid
> And in the end, the only reason to use proportional font is for style and a
> marginal increase in readability.

Everyone always claims that "we read code" more than "we write code", yet we
still optimize for writing rather than reading. Reading code that has been
typeset well is a joy and much improved experience vs. reading code that has
not.

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posnet
I ended up buying the Butterick fonts a while back for a personal project, now
I use Triplicate for basically all my coding/terminal needs. I like because it
has good readability on both low res and high res screens.

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Adaptive
I've been using input in terminal/vim for a couple months and quite like it.
Not sure if it's the end-all be-all font but it's pretty easy on the eyes, and
very tweakable.

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cxa
I've been using Input as my default monospace font in both Mac and Linux for
the past 5 months, and I have a very high opinion of it.

To anyone curious, I recommend trying the preview tool:
[http://input.fontbureau.com/preview/](http://input.fontbureau.com/preview/)

One of its best feature is that after you select your preferences for style,
width, weight, and alternates, you can bookmark the URL for later reference or
sharing.

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tellor
Its nice!

For some sites that render code I use stylish add-on in browser:

Here snippet for nice "code fonts courier-hinting" in stylish add-on:

@namespace
url([http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);](http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml\);)

@-moz-document domain("forums.gentoo.org") { .code { font-family: 'DejaVu Sans
Mono' }

}

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westoque
I've never seen so much detailed explanation for designing a font. +1

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amelius
I just use the Sony font that comes with Linux. Also works in an xterm.

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rbanffy
Has a very vintage feeling. Makes me want to get a NEWS workstation...

My terminals go for the 3278 looks:
[https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font](https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font)
(but that'll probably not work with xterm)

