
Show HN: Programming Fonts Browser - klageveen
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;app.programmingfonts.org" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;app.programmingfonts.org</a><p>I&#x27;ve spent some time collecting monospace programming fonts, particularly those that are free to use. (Monospace because you can program with any font and you&#x27;ve got to draw the line somewhere). Usually I include some background info and basic stats in a blog post, and add it to a test drive &quot;app&quot;. I&#x27;ve gone through some iterations here, and currently the backbone is a JSON data set (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;braver&#x2F;programmingfonts&#x2F;blob&#x2F;gh-pages&#x2F;fonts.json" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;braver&#x2F;programmingfonts&#x2F;blob&#x2F;gh-pages&#x2F;fon...</a>). I&#x27;ve been wondering what further to include here, e.g. glyph counts, of the zeroes are slashed or dotted, if there are OpenType alternatives, etc etc. And how to expose all that.<p>It has been linked here before, but never by me and I haven&#x27;t been able to respond before. Also, it has seen a lot of work since then. So, here I&#x27;d like to show HN what I&#x27;ve made and ask you for feedback, questions, suggestions, etc.
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jansan
Nice tool.

What amazes me is that in so many of the fonts the O (oh) looks the same or
very similar to the 0 (zero). saxMono even manages to make l (small L) and 1
(one) look the same:
[http://app.programmingfonts.org/#sax](http://app.programmingfonts.org/#sax)

Dear font designers, if you want to create a font for programmers, please keep
in mind these two basic rules:

1\. A zero needs a slash, dash or a dot

2\. A small L must be clearly distinguishable from a one.

Of course this is only my opinion, but it's a strong one.

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klageveen
Totally agree. A lot of these fonts are derived from old type writer fonts. I
try not to include pure type writer fonts, but I'm probably not really strict
here. It's a bit sad that even new monospace fonts like Noto, seemingly
designed for displaying code or at least for digital purposes, don't have at
least a distinct dot.

Personally, if the characters on line 3 in the example code look too similar
it's a no go.

