Programming With Proportional Fonts?

theodp writes "Betty or Veronica? Mary Ann or Ginger? Proportional or Monospaced? There's renewed interest in an old blog post by Maas-Maarten Zeeman, in which M-MZ made the case for programming with proportional fonts, citing studies that show proportional fonts can be read 14% faster than fixed-width fonts. Try it for a couple of weeks, he suggests, and you might like it too. Nowadays, Lucida Grande is M-MZ's font of choice on OS X, and he uses Lucida Sans on Windows. Helvetica, anyone?"

Comments

ProFont ruled the day

[drerwk]

This was my favorite for a long time. No question about 1 and l, or 0 and O; which may have been identical in the default Monaco. Also :,;, and , where slightly bold so one could easily see statement ends.
But for whatever reason, big screens, better fonts, syntax highlighting. ProFont was quite readable in 9pt; important on small screens. I might try to put ProFont in Eclipse tomorrow. ProFont can be found here: http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/index.html

Proportional fonts are better to read

[krou]

From what I understand, the way we process written words is based on the idea that each word is a like a "picture" made up of letters. So, the easier it is to identify the picture, the easier it is for us to read. This means that the width and height of letters plays an important part in creating unique pictures. It is for this reason (at least in print) serif fonts are much easier to read than sans-serif fonts. It's also for this reason that ALL CAPS is the most difficult way to read compared to just reading normal text. On this basis alone, it's likely that proportional fonts are better to read because they're likely to create better word pictures.

reads faster?

[g253]

Are we really in such a hurry when reading code? I'm under the impression that fixed fonts allow us, when we parse code, to see the different elements more clearly because their size is determined by the number of characters. But that's just an intuition. Anyone else has the same feeling?

Stroustrup chose proportional-width

[Looke]

All code in Stroustrup's "The C++ Programming Language" is presented in a proportional-width font: "At first glance, this presentation style will seem 'unnatural' to programmers accustomed to seeing code in constant-width fonts. However, proportional-width fonts are generally regarded as better than constant-width fonts for presentation of text. Using a proportional-width font also allows me to present code with fewer illogical line breaks. Furthermore, my experiments show that most people find the new style more readable after a short while."

Not only is the font proportional, but it's bold, italic, and serif as well. Now, reading a textbook is of course pretty different from editing on-screen, but I remember reconsidering some of my habits after reading that book. That code ain't hard to read.

Re:Bad for the next maintainer

[gaggle]

Incorrect.

I use proportional fonts (on whiteish background) because I'm a rebel and don't have any nostalgia for black-background-green-text terminals (i.e. I enjoy the increased readability). And contrary to your statement my code is properly tabbed, functions are aligned, everything is indented just the way FSM demands it. I know this because my coworker enjoys his nonproportional black-backgrounded terminal look and our code is interchangeable.

I simply stay away from "clever alignment tricks". I don't align comments up that sit at the end of my code lines, and you know what? Neither should you. They're annoying no matter the font-type because rewriting one line can make you end up re-indenting all the comments in that block and it's just such a silly waste of time. In my world comments go above a line, or even better is writing the code so at most it needs a little Docstring blurp to provide some context.

To recap: I'm glad you're not my boss you goddamned controlfreak. I get to read my code in sparkly pink letters as long as it doesn't affect my output or my coworkers.

Re:Dark background

[Achromatic1978]

with a computer display, the light is generated behind the text, so you don't need the sheer volume of light a white background gives you. This was even more true of old CRT displays, but even an LCD backlight produces way to much light to read comfortably.

Perhaps because most displays are sold pre-set to 100% brightness, 100% contrast, because that's what looks shiniest and most vibrant on display, driving sales.

A while back, I experimented, with the assistance of a color calibrator I use for photography (i1 Display 2, and turned the brightness on my LCD to 40%, contrast to 70%.

The result? "Wow, that's so dim. I don't think I could read that..." ... for about an hour. Now it's fantastic. My eyes hurt less, especially when the room is dark, and seem more sensitive (in a good way). Reading online all day, coding... so much more pleasant. Definitely a worthwhile experiment.

Re:Consolas

[nabsltd]

Anyway, Consolas rules my world.

I tend to use 9-point Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

Consolas at that size has both vertical and horizontal spacing that just doesn't look right to me. At larger sizes (11-point or more), the smaller x-height of Consolas gives it a better look. The "x-height war" that Microsoft started where all of their standard fonts have a large x-height for more readability but far less style is reversed a bit in Consolas.

Both Consolas and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono are great programming fonts because the easily confused characters are all obviously different. I like the comma in Consolas better, though, because it's even more obviously not a period.

Re:Reading prose versus editing code

[smisle]

If I remember right, (some) Editors (the human kind that edit manuscripts) prefer monospaced fonts for exactly the same reason - they can catch errors much easier.

I typically use the font 'Monospace' although I'm not particularly attached to it.