
ProFont: The ultimate programming font. - gus_massa
http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/
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markbao
Panic Sans FTW. (a modified version of Bitstream Vera Sans distributed with
Coda.)

<http://www.umbrae.net/files/panicsans.png> | [http://www.command-
tab.com/images/programming/perfect_font/p...](http://www.command-
tab.com/images/programming/perfect_font/panic_sans_13.gif)

~~~
jeffmueller
I second this recommendation. Panic Sans is about as good as it gets.

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lsb
That's a bitmap font, which is really good for displays where pixels are
large, but which is terrible for displays where pixels are tiny (like, say,
the iPod Touch or something). Displays are getting denser, so the way to go is
vector-based, not bitmapped.

Here's an interesting thought: you need to make the glyphs as different to
each other as you can, for a given language model. Would a font for Lisp be
different than a font for Ruby? Could you make an emacs plugin that changed
lettershapes based on character probabilities?

~~~
zenspider
aye. back when I was coding on a 9 inch B&W screen with bitmapped everything,
it was a great font to use. damn crisp and non-ambiguous at 9pt.

now I use deja vu sans, which is a fork of bitstream vera sans with full
unicode.

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icey
Claiming any font is the "ultimate" programming font is akin to claiming
"blue" is the ultimate color, or "strawberry" is the ultimate flavor of ice
cream.

~~~
rbanffy
Or thet HN is the ultimate Digg.

We appear to be entering very dangerous waters.

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arthurk
Jeff Atwood wrote about programming fonts some time ago:
<http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html>

Don't miss the comments!

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briansmith
I prefer Consolas and then Andale Mono.

~~~
tokipin
Andale Mono for me. it's very "lightweight" and beautiful. i would use Courier
New generally, but after using Andale, it's surprising how heavy and hard to
parse Courier is

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alexstaubo
After going through Courier New, Profont, Consolas, Monaco etc., my favourite
programming font ended up being Panic Sans, which comes with Coda, a Mac IDE
that I don't use. For developers whose point size of preference hovers closer
to 12 points than 6, it's perfect. Sample:
<http://purefiction.net/paste/panicsans.png>

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rkowalick
I prefer terminus for pretty much everything:

[http://bp3.blogger.com/_YFgpCPoV-8g/RzMRmS_pCVI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/...](http://bp3.blogger.com/_YFgpCPoV-8g/RzMRmS_pCVI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/XbMaCjbEj9Q/s1600-h/terminus-
font.png)

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ricree
I'm currently using Dina, and to date it has been the best programming font
I've used.

<http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/>

~~~
MrSomeone
Same here. Since switching to Dina I haven't found another font that I could
stare at all day.

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SamReidHughes
No, Bikeshed Sans is the ultimate font.

~~~
bkudria
lol! you're so funny!

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tlrobinson
Wow the Mac version is distributed as a .sit... old school. I despise anyone
who knowingly distributes files as Stuffit archives any more, but this just
seems to have not been updated since the days of Mac OS 9.

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dchest
Inconsolata FTW!

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rbanffy
BTW, does anyone here knows what slightly serifed font Red Hat used for their
terminal when they introduced the Bluecurve visuals?

There are days I want my terminals with a slightly warmer font than a sans-
serif one.

~~~
rbanffy
If a kind soul can help, I found a screenshot where it appears.

<http://osdir.com/screenshots/fedoracore3test2/87.gif>

~~~
hassy
That's Luxi Mono.

~~~
rbanffy
Thanks!

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nonrecursive
This is a little off topic, but I loved the font in Konsole. And I just
freaking loved Konsole, but haven't been able to get working for OS X. Has
anyone here been able to?

~~~
ahpeeyem
have you tried iTerm on OSX? It's rad.

<http://iterm.sourceforge.net/>

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lowdown
This font is so tiny at 1920x1200. It also has odd brackets when editing XML.

I'm a big fan of ProggyClean and Pragmata.

~~~
kilowatt
Definitely. Pixel fonts are past their prime on a 24" LCD.

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duane
Inconsolata. Hands down.

~~~
Volt
So true.

[http://nullstyle.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/10/inconsolata....](http://nullstyle.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/10/inconsolata.jpg)

(Thanks, Google Images)

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lbolognini
LOL, looks like crap. Bitstream Vera Mono FTW!

~~~
dhotson
I used to love Bitstream Vera Mono. It's pretty nice.

Although, recently I've switched to Liberation Mono as my monospace weapon of
choice.. I'd certainly recommend it.

~~~
scott_s
I use Liberation Mono on Linux, but Consolas on Windows. I've found that the
different platforms don't display each other's fonts as nicely.

