
Lesser Known Coding Fonts - signa11
https://vfoley.xyz/lesser-known-coding-fonts/
======
Erlich_Bachman
Every thread about programming fonts is not complete without mentioning the
wonderful website
[https://app.programmingfonts.org](https://app.programmingfonts.org) (no
affiliation, I just find it really useful) which lists all the free
programming-related fonts with live preview (for example every single font
from the article, and every one mentioned so far in every comment in this
thread is already there in the app) - it allows quick one-click preview with
custom text on each font, and has direct links for downloading said fonts.

Every font from this thread is already there in the app so you might as well
just try them all.

~~~
INTPenis
That is a truly fantastic site but it doesn't mention
[https://dank.sh/](https://dank.sh/) which I first heard about in this thread.

Just to nitpick.

But I am right now going through every one of those fonts in the app to
compare with the one I've used for almost a decade now.

~~~
exergy
Do you like it?

One of the things that really gets in the way of comprehension for me are
typefaces with _too much_ personality. These cutesy italics etc. really seem
to affect my ability to get on with the job at hand.

This is why, despite trying, I've yet to find something that can outdo
Consolas on Windows. I tried Fira this and that, Source code pro and a bunch
of others from Google Fonts. They all are inferior to Consolas in my eyes.
They'll either be missing the slotted '0', or look crowded in small sizes etc.

~~~
zaat
I found it terrible, not only because of the surplus personality, but due to
aesthetic and readability issues.

Readability - the r looks to me closer to an i, not the i of this font but a
generic i, I find it confusing and it slows me down.

Aesthetically - the f character have space before it that in many combinations
cuts a word to two, for example in the word delightful. Generally the font is
mono-spaced, but the space between and after characters varies a lot.

~~~
uncletaco
I found it terribly incomplete. $40 and it can’t cover all four standard
weights: regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. I believe it was last one,
bold italic, that it was missing and the website is careful to obscure that
fact.

~~~
aaronax
And the ridiculous of those italics glyphs. Like, who decided that the f and l
should have huge decorative slings but not the g?

------
L0stLink
The 3 main things I look for in a "coding font" are whether I can
differentiate between i,I,l,L,1 and 0,o,O characters, whether or not it is
readable at tiny font size (7px to 9px range on my display) and that it is a
monospaced font. first and second are nice to have in any font.

For over 4 years I have sworn by the _excellent_ Fira Mono font by Mozilla
more specifically FiraCode (variant with added ligatures), before that it was
Consolas. Beyond the three things I have mentioned I do not desire anything
more from a font.

[0] [http://mozilla.github.io/Fira](http://mozilla.github.io/Fira)

~~~
dev_dull
The 0 and O are fairly ambiguous in that example. I pretty much require
strikes or dots in the 0 for any font to be considered unambiguous.

~~~
L0stLink
You might be looking at the non monospaced variant in the Fira font family.

------
Ezku
This rarely gets a mention but totally deserves one: Iosevka[0], a programming
font with great ligatures, multiple weights, and customizable character
variants to tune it to your preferences. It’s more slender than most blocky
monotypes which makes it stand apart especially from more traditional choices
like Monaco and Consolas.

[0]: [https://typeof.net/Iosevka/](https://typeof.net/Iosevka/)

~~~
1_player
I'm 100% in the Iosevka camp, especially the serif version with Iosevka Slab.

Looks amazing on a Retina screen, and it's quite compact on the horizontal
axis, many programming fonts are far too wide for my tastes.

~~~
iserlohnmage
Just curious, which font size do you use? I kinda feel that small font size +
serif make text unreadable.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
I think it's perhaps small font size + serif + low resolution. Serifs can
improve readability at times.

------
tony
Of all things in the world to say, congratulations to Microsoft for their work
on Cascadia Code: [https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-
code](https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code)

It's hard to do these fonts justice via preview alone, but in whole it's very
legible to read.

Aside: If you want fast access to a _ton_ of fixed-width (coding) fonts, pre-
patched for powerline, you can grab them at
[https://github.com/powerline/fonts](https://github.com/powerline/fonts).

If you do CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) characters in the terminal and want
crisp, bitmap ligatures, I recommend Wen Quan Yi Micro Hei. But it doesn't
work well scaled up in HiDPI monitors unfortunately! CJK in the terminal is
still kind of a mystery to me.

~~~
siproprio
I don't like the Cascadia Code font! It feels difficult to read, full of
fluffs and blings.

Cascadia Code looks like the Comic Sans of programming fonts.

------
nielsbot
I see Input Mono is mentioned, but I actually really like using Input Sans,
also from Font Bureau. It's a _proportional_ coding font. I feel like I'm
living in the future.

You can get it here:
[https://input.fontbureau.com](https://input.fontbureau.com)

And amazingly, you can personalize your font on download, such as choosing
dotted vs slashed zeroes.

Not free, but free for personal, non-commercial use. (Check the terms)

~~~
pmontra
I've been using proportional fonts for coding for years. Nobody notices when
looking at my screen or when doing a screen sharing session. The few times I
talk about it everybody agrees that it's easier to read. I'm not surprised,
because nobody formats books, magazines, newspapers, web sites with monospaced
fonts. The only problem is that it's impossible to align code on successive
lines to the right of an equal sign. Not a big deal. It's also pretty
impossible to write ASCII diagrams in comments. AFAIK there is no editor that
can help with that, unless one wants to code inside a word processor.

I'll try Input Sans.

~~~
andreareina
ASCII diagrams in comments/docstrings are doable if your editor supports
custom faces. For example `M-x list-faces-display` on emacs tells me that
(among other things) I can customize:

\- font-lock-comment-face \- font-lock-doc-face \- org-table (also depends on
alignment)

------
0-_-0
When I was researching coding fonts for myself I've found the two I liked the
most were _Iosevka_ and _Fira Code_ because of their ligature support (
_DejaVu Sans Mono_ is also good but typically doesn't have ligatures). The
choice between them comes down to whether you value having more horizontal
space (shorter lines) or vertical space. _Iosevka_ is horizontally compressed,
meaning you can fit more characters into a given window width, and _Fira Code_
is more vertically compressed.

Also, in Visual Studio Code you can fine-tune your coding font using these
options:

    
    
        "editor.fontFamily": "'Fira Code', monospace",
        "editor.fontSize": 14,
        "editor.lineHeight": 14,
        "editor.letterSpacing": -1.0,
        "editor.fontWeight": "300",
        "editor.fontLigatures": true,
    

I recommend tuning your _lineHeight_ and _letterSpacing_.

~~~
bryal
I really want to use Fira Mono/Code, but it sadly doesn't support italics,
which is a deal-breaker for me, so instead I've been using Iosevka for a week.
It's really pretty!

------
Zizizizz
Iosevka is the one that I always go back to:
[https://typeof.net/Iosevka/](https://typeof.net/Iosevka/)

Both the standard and slab versions are great

~~~
alwillis
Holy smokes!

For as long as I’ve been coding, I’ve never heard of this font. Thanks for
mentioning it.

------
evanrelf
Surprised nobody has mentioned PragmataPro

[https://www.fsd.it/shop/fonts/pragmatapro/](https://www.fsd.it/shop/fonts/pragmatapro/)

Probably the most complete and polished programming font I've seen. If you
like Iosevka, you'll love PragmataPro.

I've been spoiled by Iosevka and PragmataPro's narrow characters, so now I can
never go back to "normal" programming fonts...

~~~
Karunamon
I ended up going with Iosevka because it's basically PragmataPro without the
200EUR ($223) price tag. I just can't justify that much for a freaking font to
myself, no matter how nice it looks.

~~~
spectramax
You could just buy the normal and perhaps italic weights.

If you're a software engineer, $100 on a font that you look at 8 hours
everyday for a living is a no brainer. You'd probably spend $80 on a mouse,
$100 on a keyboard, $120 on a good pair of shoes, $1500 on a good mattress,
fonts are one of those things. If you like it, there shouldn't be a hesitation
for "oh...its just a font, why should I pay for it".

Typefaces are insanely hard to design and optimize. Sometimes, it takes a
couple of years to develop one typeface.

~~~
Karunamon
I've heard this argument many times, and it would work in a vacuum. A $100
keyboard is probably better than a $10 keyboard.

This $200 font is not better than this other $0 font, and it has the same
aesthetic. And good luck quantifying "better than" given a list of feature
checkboxes that are common to all "programming fonts" including Fira Code,
Source Code Pro, etc.

~~~
spectramax
I wasn't trying to imply $200 font is better. I think you missed my point -
which is that there is a stigma associated with paying for fonts and that
usually comes from the fact that people do not know what goes into development
of fonts due to the abundance of free fonts available on the internet. Sure,
free fonts can be great - I did not say they can't be.

One of my favorite fonts is Isoveska which is free.

------
jgtrosh
This is missing Terminus[1], a wonderful bitmap font which is widely available
on unices.

[1]: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/terminus-
font/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/terminus-font/)

~~~
ilvez
I really like Terminus and have been using it for years. My problem with it is
the width -- it's just takes so much space that I can't read nicely 2 files
side-by-side. Does anyone know similar font just bit narrower? Fonts that have
been designed with anti-aliasing in mind fall out immediately.

------
jsd1982
I may be an oddball here but I prefer and still use to this day the original
IBM VGA8 BIOS bitmap font [0] for monospace everywhere including IDEs and text
editors. I grew up in the late 1980s and 1990s staring at DOS text mode
screens and this font was pretty much burned into my brain. Generally I try to
keep it at its original 16px height and avoid any sort of non-integral scaling
or antialiasing blurriness.

[0] [https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-
fonts/fontlist/](https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/) \- the
default font for that site; I use the PxPlus variant.

~~~
acheron
I do the same thing. It's very comforting to be using that font.

------
KaiserPro
I am still very happy with
[https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig](https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig)

its nice and readable, but has ligatures, which makes things like == & -> very
obvious.

------
ManDeJan
I'm a big fan of [https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-
sans/](https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans/) the characters make me
happy every day :)

~~~
otterpro
Fantasque sans mono is my current font, as I've been using it for over a year,
as it was the only font that I really like. It is slightly too fancy
sometimes, and I go the one that renders "k" without the loop.

~~~
gnuvince
There's a download option to have Fantasque Sans Mono without the looped k.

[https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-
sans/releases/download/...](https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-
sans/releases/download/v1.7.2/FantasqueSansMono-NoLoopK.zip)

------
grafelic
I always use Dina font, except on HiDPI screens were I use Terminus. I even
ported Dina to AmigaOS so I can enjoy it there as well. It is the most legible
and non-tiring font for terminal/vi work for me.

Dina font:
[https://www.dcmembers.com/jibsen/download/61/](https://www.dcmembers.com/jibsen/download/61/)

Dina font port on aminet:
[http://aminet.net/package/text/bfont/Dina](http://aminet.net/package/text/bfont/Dina)

------
coleifer
I compiled a large list of monospace coding fonts a couple years ago. Includes
screenshots and links:

[http://charlesleifer.com/blog/monospace-font-
favorites/](http://charlesleifer.com/blog/monospace-font-favorites/)

Hope someone else finds it useful.

------
29athrowaway
I have used Sudo and Monoid for years. Other fonts I like are:

\- Luculent,
[http://eastfarthing.com/luculent/](http://eastfarthing.com/luculent/)

\- Envy Code R, [https://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-
preview-7-co...](https://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-
preview-7-coding-font-released)

B612 Mono would be an excellent font if the glyphs were well aligned.

~~~
gregoryl
Adore Envy Code R. Wish it was something I could purchase and have maintained,
one of the very few customisations I make on a new box is configuring things
to use it.

------
bitwize
My current favorite is the 8x16 Atari ST system font. Its thick strokes really
help my aging eyes. Bitmap fonts for life.

~~~
fbnlsr
I also love bitmap fonts, but when you're switching screen sizes it's annoying
to have to change your config each time.

~~~
bitwize
That's when you cheat and use a TrueType version of the bitmap font :)

~~~
fbnlsr
But then it's not as crisp looking :(

------
pcr910303
I have tried lots of different coding fonts for fun (and when I change fonts,
it just feels like using a brand new computer :-)), but my go-to font when I
just don’t want to think what I’m gonna using is SF Mono, from the San
Francisco fonts by Apple[0].

It blends well with the macOS system fonts, and it’s great.

[0] [https://developer.apple.com/fonts/](https://developer.apple.com/fonts/)

~~~
tandav
SF Mono is awesome. Using it for a long time.

The link you posted
[https://developer.apple.com/fonts](https://developer.apple.com/fonts) offers
to download and install .dmg -> .pkg. I usually install SF Mono via
/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts. This folder
contains all SF Mono fonts in .otf format. If you open them and install, it
vill be available everywhere. You can copy those files and install it on
Windows or Linux computer.

Also this extension is musthave:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-font-
sett...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-font-
settings/caclkomlalccbpcdllchkeecicepbmbm) I set SF Mono as default monospaced
font for chrome. IDK why ugly Courier font is still default in many software.

~~~
wildrhythms
FYI If you just want to change the 'monospace' font in Chrome, you can do that
from chrome://settings/fonts and don't need an extension (I changed it from
Courier New to something nicer as well).

------
JJMcJ
Questions to ask, always.

Are capital and small letter I, large and small letter L, vertical bar |, and
exclamation point !, clearly distinguishable.

Same for zero, large and small o.

Same for different brackets [ { ( <.

Same for colon, semicolon, comma, period.

If the font doesn't do this, then it's not very useful for programmers.

Extra points if multiple underscores, as in __FILE__ are separated so you can
in the example count that there are two underscores before and after FILE.

~~~
JJMcJ
Forget something. For the i I l L | !, don't forget numeral one 1.

------
sedachv
I do not think you can talk about typefaces separately from talking about
color themes. Different typefaces will have completely different legibility
depending on the background and foreground color. Low-contrast themes are
terrible for legibility, and necessitate poor choice of font and font size to
compensate.

In 2017, I decided to invest some time in font-shopping; so many good
alternatives had appeared since I last looked in 2009. The unexpected result
was that I stopped using vector fonts and switched almost everything I do to
the X Window System bitmap misc-fixed font.¹ After looking at the
alternatives, misc-fixed is still the best typeface for text density and
extended computing sessions. It was a typeface designed for black-on-white CRT
displays in the 1980s, but works just as well white-on-black on LCD displays
today.

¹ Unfortunately Firefox font picker only lists vector fonts, I did not bother
to try fixing that.

~~~
Liskni_si
> Unfortunately Firefox font picker only lists vector fonts, I did not bother
> to try fixing that.

Fontconfig on most distros is configured to reject bitmap fonts by default. On
Debian, it's /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf. One way to fix that is
enabling all bitmap fonts "dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config", which might be
too much. Another is to explicitly enable Fixed in /etc/fonts/local.conf:
[https://github.com/stevenrobertson/rc-
files/blob/master/.con...](https://github.com/stevenrobertson/rc-
files/blob/master/.config/font-manager/local.conf#L20-L22)

------
fcambus
Taking the opportunity to mention Spleen, which I've been working on for the
past year:
[https://github.com/fcambus/spleen](https://github.com/fcambus/spleen)

It is a monospaced bitmap font available in several sizes, ranging from 5x8 up
to 32x64.

------
forrestthewoods
Give me Consolas or give me death.

I have tried many programming fonts. I love articles like this that expose to
me to new, fun things to try. But alas Consolas is King.

~~~
Jaruzel
I used to think this, until I went on my quest to find a better fonts.
Microsoft did a really good job on Consolas to make it look great on Windows.

Unfortunately a lot of coding fonts dont hint well on Windows, or only look
good in hiDPI...

Eventually I settled on Droid Sans Mono, which I modified to have a slashed
Zero.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Yup. These days a shocking number of people never test on Windows or a 1080p
monitor.

Windows is my primary dev environment. I don’t think many people are even
trying to look good there. So I’m not sure Consolas will ever be dethroned.
Not for me at least.

------
dvcrn
I’m team “operator mono”. It costs a bit but damn is it beautiful

------
fouc
I find it frustrating to objectively compare fonts when their heights and
widths can vary so much.

My requirement are fairly simple:

I want the the largest & most readable font setup in 13" 1280x800 retina
display, while still being able to fit at least 161 characters across, so that
I can have 80+ characters in each editor in a split screen setup.

My current setup is: 14pt Monaco with 88% horizontal spacing. This gives me
181x39 characters in iTerm.

Another similar setup is Mensch @ 13pt @ 88% horizontal & 118% vertical. I
like the bitstream/deja vu variations like Panic Sans or Mensch.

~~~
eptcyka
It's a shame you can't use bitmapped fonts - I find that Terminus at 9pts is
the most legible whilst being still small on a range of DPIs. The truetype
version of Terminus is truly awful and does not carry over the legibility of
it's bitmapped counterpart.

------
rswail
I settled on Inconsolata-g. I hate curly i's and l's.

I've only got two minor quibbles with it, I prefer a slashed zero instead of a
dotted one, and the tilde ~ and back quote ` are a bit small/weak.

~~~
gyuserbti
Somewhere I saw a version of Inconsolata with the slashed zero. There was a
site at one time that collected all the Inconsolata permutations in one place,
but I don't have it offhand.

~~~
raphlinus
I'm revising Inconsolata, making it into a variable font, and would like to
gather data on the variants out there so I can make it satisfy the largest
number of users. Feel free to file an issue on
[https://github.com/googlefonts/Inconsolata](https://github.com/googlefonts/Inconsolata)
simply stating your preference.

------
emersonrsantos
I like 3270font, inspired on 3270 mainframe terminals:
[https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font](https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font)

------
srazzaque
Until reading this and learning about Go Mono - I hadn't ever thought to look
for both serif and monospace attributes in a single font. I just assumed that
monospace implied sans-serif.

I personally find serif fonts _far_ easier to read and aesthetically pleasing.
I've switched my phone to using Serif fonts too (though annoyed that on
Samsung/Android I needed to _purchase_ a font to make that happen - not
expensive, but nonetheless).

This just might move me on from Source Code Pro for all my editing purposes.

~~~
mark-r
The very first monospace font I ever saw, Courier, was a serif font.

~~~
srazzaque
You're right - it is indeed a serif font, which I've seen many times (but
never considered using it as my daily driver).

------
TomMarius
My favorite coding font is Monaco. Feels like the cleanest of them.

~~~
Lammy
Monaco 9 in BBEdit :)

"Monoid" in the linked article made me think of it immediately.

~~~
amatecha
Exactly what I was thinking - most of my earliest coding experiences involved
editing 9-pt Monaco in BBEdit!! heheh :)

------
Keloran
I would check out nerdfonts[1] it includes some of the ones listed in inside
it

[1] [https://www.nerdfonts.com/](https://www.nerdfonts.com/)

~~~
harimau777
What is the use case for all of the extra icons? Not criticizing, I'm just
wondering if there's something that I missed.

------
skunkworker
I know it's mentioned in the article, but I've loved using Fira Code for
awhile. It's made some parts of code much easier to read in ruby and
javascript.

------
praptak
Tweaking the coding fonts is the ultimate form of productivity porn. Don't do
that unless you see any actual problems with your current font.

~~~
exergy
I think switching up how you do things from time to time keeps things fresh.
Change your wallpaper! Rearrange your office! Go without syntax highlighting
for a day! And, yeah, change your programming font.

------
oofabz
Go Mono looks very much like Luxi Mono, one of my favorites. I'll have to give
it a try.

~~~
flobosg
Both were designed by the same studio, and the Go fonts are clearly inspired
by the Luxi family:
[https://twitter.com/0intro/status/799230797601525765](https://twitter.com/0intro/status/799230797601525765)

------
CharlesW
Has anyone used IBM's Plex Mono[1] for an extended period of time? If so, I'd
love to hear your thoughts.

[1] [https://app.programmingfonts.org/#plex-
mono](https://app.programmingfonts.org/#plex-mono)

~~~
ocdnix
Yes, for about a year now, both in the console (alacritty) and vscode, and I
think it's great. Granted, I mostly ignore it, which is a good thing.

I frequently change the term emulator font size, and each size oddly changes
the "aspect ratio" – for lack of a better term – of both Plex and any other
monospace font. I find it weird, but it does sometimes help to have a somewhat
narrower variant of Plex, especially for side-by-side terminals.

------
petters
There should be more variable-width coding fonts.

~~~
onion2k
As someone who's never used a variable width font for writing code, I have to
ask why would you want that?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The kerning is easier in your eyes, and is also much more space efficient. The
only drawback is the inability to do ascii art.

~~~
solicode
While I wouldn't say it's THAT significant, there is one other advantage to
fixed-width fonts that I've experienced. Due to the fact that they align
vertically, sometimes they expose mistakes if you're constructing data in a
table-like fashion. Or when you have a bunch of copy/pasted lines that differ
only in the parameter values. Like, "Hey wait a minute... this line is 1 char
wider than the previous one. Oh, whoops, I fat-fingered something there".

I wish I had more specific examples and could quantify it better, but I know
I've caught quite a few errors this way.

~~~
koheripbal
This exactly. Most recently I had a script that was calling functions with
fixed width data sets (IDs, credit card numbers, birthdates, etc..), and typos
were significantly easier to find due to the data and fonts both being fixed
width.

------
markandrewj
It displays better on some systems then others, but I like 'Liberation Mono'.

[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts)

------
Weizilla
For those who found almost the right font but not quite, FontForge is a free
and open source editor that's pretty easy to use and even has a tutorial on
editing and design:

[https://fontforge.github.io/en-US/](https://fontforge.github.io/en-US/)
[http://designwithfontforge.com/en-
US/index.html](http://designwithfontforge.com/en-US/index.html)

Editing glyphs is just like using any image editor. You can mod any existing
font or even combine glyphs from multiple fonts together into one.

------
cannam
Seems a bit superfluous to suggest commercial fonts when there are so many
good free ones, but I am very fond of FontFont Attribute Mono
([https://www.fontshop.com/families/ff-attribute-
mono](https://www.fontshop.com/families/ff-attribute-mono)) by Viktor Nübel.
It's cheerful, friendly and characterful without being too eccentric, and very
easy to read.

------
roryrjb
Some of my favourites not mentioned on this thread yet include D2Coding by
Naver
([https://github.com/naver/d2codingfont](https://github.com/naver/d2codingfont))
and Programma by Douglas Crockford
([https://github.com/douglascrockford/Programma](https://github.com/douglascrockford/Programma)).

------
bnastic
Tried them all over the years.

Then I bought Triplicate from mbtype.com and since then it's been my mono font
of choice in everything. Nothing comes close on HiDpi screens

------
bwidlar
My favorite for programming and terminal, Luculent:

[http://eastfarthing.com/luculent](http://eastfarthing.com/luculent)

------
ratmice
Can anyone recommend a good font which has good differentiation between
lowercase letters and uppercase letters (when dealing with both lower/upper
unicode subscripts and superscripts)

Presumably lowercase letters would have a rounder o, and uppercase a
flatter/blockier O, i.e. all lower/upper have some differentiation, and no
lowercase character where it is just a scaled down version of the upper.

would be eternally grateful.

------
kuon
I just switched to Monoid and I like it so far. But it is quite a change.
Compared to my previous font (Fira code) it is really different.

This is a really hard feeling to explain, I wouldn't say that Monoid is easier
or faster to read, but it distract me less. I feel like I am more focused on
what I read while still being able to scan a file to find what I want.

------
jedberg
For a brief while I tried using Comic Sans in my IDE. I did that because it
was made to be super readable. It was in fact super readable, but I just
couldn't get over the lack of mono spacing.

Then I switched to FiraCode and it's been great.

I still use Comic Sans in all of my chat programs though (IMessage, Slack,
IRC, etc.) I actually really enjoy it.

~~~
Joeri
Check out Fantasque Sans Mono, it is a monospaced Comic Sans.

~~~
yellowapple
Seconded; it's exactly what I use with Comic Neue.

I wouldn't say it's _exactly_ a monospaced Comic Sans; there are substantial
differences. It definitely has a lot of the same advantages, though.

------
sdan
Nice article.

I think most just stick with fonts they've used in the past. In my case, I
can't get myself to use anything other than Apple's Terminal (which uses SF
Mono). Maybe later in the future I may budge and move off of it (iTerm2 for
some reason can't quite exactly get SF Mono right, even though I import it).

~~~
saagarjha
What about it is wrong? Apart from a different weight (which you can disable
if you’d like) I’ve found SF Mono to work quite well in iTerm.

------
morpheuskafka
Ubuntu Mono remains my favorite for coding/terminals. It has a great mix of
character and minimalism and of course is completely free/libre.
[https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu+Mono](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu+Mono)

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
The only thing I don't like about Ubuntu mono is tiny minus ("-") character.
It is way too narrow.

Bront Ubuntu Mono fixes this, but breaks other things: some letters, for
unclear reasons, are weirdly stretched (see "l")

------
vyuh
Agave[1] and Lekton[2] are among my favorites.

[1]:
[https://app.programmingfonts.org/#agave](https://app.programmingfonts.org/#agave)

[2]:
[https://app.programmingfonts.org/#lekton](https://app.programmingfonts.org/#lekton)

~~~
jmlucjav
used consolas so far, tried Iosevka but felt like something was off, this
Agave thing is great!! Thanks!

------
oneeyedpigeon
It’s good to see that many of these fonts distinguish well between open/close
quote characters - this is a personal bugbear of mine. For example, Input Mono
fails for me on this aspect. Hyphens and the two dashes are usually
problematic, too - unfortunately, no examples of those in this post.

------
armagon
I would really like to use a proportional font that has coding ligatures (such
as -> becomes an arrow). Is there such a thing? Is there a way I could combine
two fonts, a normal proportional font, and the ligatures from something like
Fira Code , to create a hybrid font, perhaps with a script?

~~~
anon1253
Not entirely sure I understand, but maybe Pragmata Pro?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragmataPro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragmataPro)

------
LordHeini
I found fonts to be not all that important so I switched to Andale Mono or
it's free variant (not sure) .

It is a very old one from the ie4 Era. Looks a bit more retro but mostly like
all the other typical programming fonts.

I switched to it because I own a watch using this font and liked the idea of
matching it to my system.

------
mxstbr
This is definitely missing Dank: [https://dank.sh](https://dank.sh)

It's my favorite programming font, made by a good friend of mine. It has
awesome ligatures and the italic version is beautiful, similar to Operator
Mono!

~~~
harimau777
I really like it overall, but I think the f going below the baseline and the
italic l not starting at the baseline would drive me crazy.

I wonder how hard it would be for me to change just those characters.

~~~
Syzygies
Easy. A basic font editor can do it. I for example experimented with changing
the weight of parenthesis, thinking they're not evil in Lisp, just tuned badly
for that purpose.

~~~
Riverheart
Larger or smaller weight?

------
hereisdx
I really like consolas. It looks beautiful, there is no ambiguity between
characters, the spacing and sizes are perfect. It comes pre installed with
Windows, and I even use it on Linux, which is my primary development
environment.

------
sjm
My favorite lately is iA Writer Mono:
[https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-
christmas](https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas)

------
shurcooL
So glad to see Go Mono mentioned here. I'm a happy user for many years now.

------
ur-whale
My favorite lesser known coding font is Monofur:

[https://www.slant.co/options/228/~monofur-
review](https://www.slant.co/options/228/~monofur-review)

~~~
sakesun
My favorite too.

------
acl777
Any love for Anonymous Pro?

[https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-
pro](https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro)

------
jstewartmobile
Personal Favorites

\- Iosevka Term Slab \- Envy Code R \- DaddyTimeMono \- M+ 1mn \- Consolas

~~~
rammy1234
finally someone mentioning "Daddy Time Mono" font. Cheers!!

------
hphamq
[https://youtu.be/_WgrfEaAM4Y?t=1206](https://youtu.be/_WgrfEaAM4Y?t=1206)
Anyone know this font/theme name? Looks solid to me.

~~~
gnuvince
That's Hack [1].

[1] [https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/](https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/)

------
eahm
This is what I keep in the archived monospaced fonts file:
[https://i.imgur.com/ljIsGBV.png](https://i.imgur.com/ljIsGBV.png)

~~~
eahm
Cant edit anymore, here is the archive:
[https://filebin.net/95tzseyosis5dnua](https://filebin.net/95tzseyosis5dnua)

------
rj1
I've really been enjoying the Overpass fonts from RedHat -
[https://overpassfont.org](https://overpassfont.org)

~~~
Phylter
I don't really like their mono font but the others look pretty good, just not
for coding. Thanks for sharing. I didn't know about them.

------
aasasd
I'd really like to see a monospace font with variable stroke width (i.e. with
stroke width contrast). Current monospace typefaces seem to converge towards a
single point in the configuration space, and by now occupy a pretty narrow
range of variation—rather evident in the ‘Programming Fonts Test Drive.’ My
eye pines for some elegance among the ubiquitous brutish utilitarian
letterforms.

Variable stroke width is really uncommon in sans-serif fonts, so that some
people associate sans-serif with fixed-width strokes. But no, such fonts
exist, only they are mostly used for display, i.e. big titles and posters.
While monospace is not equal to sans-serif, it for some reason rejects
variable stroke widths even more strongly.

Linux Biolinum is one sans-serif example that can be used as body font. It's a
straightforward antiqua with serifs chopped off: [http://libertine-
fonts.org/show-me/](http://libertine-fonts.org/show-me/)

Humanistic Rosario has almost imperceptible, subliminal stroke contrast:
[https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/rosario](https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/rosario)
(The font suffers a bit from sub-ideal kerning.)

Optima is a classical example, also reminiscent of antiqua. Lucida Grande
(iirc) has hints of variable strokes.

The brain begins to panic at first when it sees stroke contrast but no
serifs—but such fonts do tickle me somehow, especially with modern humanist
approach. It's a pity they're mostly present on loud posters. Would be
splendid to have me a homely playful and eye-pleasing font in the editor and
terminal.

------
carapace
Just to note, numerals five and six and lowercase-B look alike in some fonts:

    
    
        5b6

------
AndrewHart
I swear by Source Code Pro.

------
hechang1997
what do you guys think is the best editor theme in bright light? I have been
always using monokai but recently I have to work in bright light sometimes and
it's quite hard to read.

~~~
ngenstyle
Check out Dracula At Night for VS Code. I swear by it for every IDE possible.
I'm honestly surprised it's only got around ~52k installs. I don't remember
where I first found it, but I'm glad I did.

------
michaelchris
Anyone still able to access the website? Seems to be down right now.

~~~
gnuvince
It's up now (10:04am EDT), but this is the first article on my site that has
this much traffic, so it's possible the small Linode instance I use was not
able to keep up.

------
bprasanna
Sudo is awesome. Thank you for mentioning about it.

------
thobiasse
I love the APL333 font! Thanks mate!

------
tiep
that not make any sense

------
zdw
Hmm, I submitted this a short while ago. I wonder if something is up with the
HN dupe detector...:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21300971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21300971)

