What is the best font for programming?
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
I've got both Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio set to Consonas. It's a very easy to look at font, and as weird as it sounds, with ClearType enabled, it's really rather nice to look at. I've actually been more productive using this font.
Jamie Nordmeyer
Portland, Oregon, USA
http://www.feralcodemonkies.com -
I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
Graham Shanks' comment linked to Hans' comprehensive survey : [^] "Font Survey: 42 of the Best Monospaced Programming Fonts" By Hans Dietrich A masterful job of illustrating and intelligently discussing the pros and cons of various fonts designed for programming. Which has undergone several revisions, been updated as recently as the end of September this year. So, I'd like to join in with Graham in "applause" for a great article ! imho Hans' article, along with the link to proggyfonts provided by Rajesh, has everything you need to make a choice suitable for your eyes and your style. < aside : I personally find colored text on a black background difficult to read in all situations, perhaps one reason I find so many of the WPF interfaces in the style I refer to as "vampire funeral" very difficult to use ... but I have the same problem with what I refer to as the "bleached-out aqua" WPF interface themes. probably just my old eyes > best, Bill
"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
If you like programming on a dark background, check out Tomas Restrepo's VS2008 color schemes: http://winterdom.com/2007/11/vs2008colorschemes [update] And my friend just reminded me of more color schemes here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudioProgrammerThemesGallery.aspx
Best wishes, Hans
modified on Friday, November 27, 2009 2:24 AM
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
All my elements have a unique colour as well, still on a white background, but that's beside the point. The best programming font ever is Consolas.
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He's an idiot. And he's taken to creating you tube videos that slander me. "I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming. " This is ridiculous, I am sorry. The font that suits you, is a personal choice. There are no fonts created FOR programming, or universally the BEST for programming.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Many fonts have been created for programming.
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
Jeff Atwood has quite a few blog posts, if you Google for them on fonts and colour schemes. Here is one with some examples of good coding fonts (and one very bad example). http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html[^]
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I use multiple fonts. Italic comments and bold operators make code faster to read. And I believe strongly in reading a lot of code as quickly as possible... As for which fonts... Pick something that looks good to you. Why on earth would you trust someone else's subjective opinions over what your own eyes tell you? Personally, I dislike using fonts where l looks like 1 or 0 looks like O, but YMMV...
Shog9 wrote:
Italic comments
Thanks. I had that enabled some time, then completely forgot about it. Switching it on right now. Maybe not. It's not a standard option and not easy to kludge.
Last modified: 46mins after originally posted --
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Josh Gray wrote:
I just use the visual studio option that makes it look and feel like version 6.
Eeew!
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If you like programming on a dark background, check out Tomas Restrepo's VS2008 color schemes: http://winterdom.com/2007/11/vs2008colorschemes [update] And my friend just reminded me of more color schemes here: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudioProgrammerThemesGallery.aspx
Best wishes, Hans
modified on Friday, November 27, 2009 2:24 AM
Nice, long-forgotten links, Hans :) I've been using a heavily-modified version of Zenburn for 2+ years now, in both VS and SQL Server Management Studio. Very pleasing on the eyes.
Cheers, Vikram. (Cracked not one CCC, but two!)
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Well, sure. BUT, there's a ton of fonts out there, which would satisfy that problem. Just setting the colour scheme and font size, will do that. To suggest there's an optimal programming font, is the height of ignorance.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Well, that lies in the eyes of the beholder, and so on, yada-yada.
Christian Graus wrote:
To suggest there's an optimal programming font, is the height of ignorance.
Isn't that more ignorant? ;)
-- Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - Bertrand Russel
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He's an idiot. And he's taken to creating you tube videos that slander me. "I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming. " This is ridiculous, I am sorry. The font that suits you, is a personal choice. There are no fonts created FOR programming, or universally the BEST for programming.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Christian Graus wrote:
you tube videos that slander me
Link?
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
I totally agree on having code on black background: much less strain for the eye and the quality of the display used is less important. For those who have always programmed on white background it's difficult to turn to black, but once switched it's forever. I also agree the importance of having proper designed fonts. In my 20 year programming experience I've always drawn myself the fonts I used for coding. I did that in DOS and do now in Windows. In Visual studio I designed a bitmap font that is two pixel wide in x and y so that it has a bold appearance making code very readable even on high resolution displays. Unfortunately bitmap fonts are no longer supported Windows/.NET so some modern editors won't accept bitmap fonts anymore; in this case I use a custom font derived from "Consolas bold" making it 75% wide than normal (so that it doesn't wast too much space in horizontal) Here is an example of Visual studio with my bitmap fonts And here an example of C Sharp Develop and custom Consolas Bold 75% wide
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I've just rediscovered the beauty of color on black for programming environment. More information can be expressed with this type of color scheme. I like how numbers, strings, operators, identifiers all have a unique color that makes things much easier to sort through. The massive reduction of strain on the eyes is good also. Now I am looking for the best font to go with it. For those who customize their programming environment, what font do you use? What color scheme do you use? What is the best? I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big. I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming.
CaptainSeeSharp wrote:
I kind of like fonts that remind me of programming in DOS, however fixedsys and terminal are too big.
That highly depends on your resolution. Since I use 1680x1050, fixedsys (the original, not the TrueType one) seems to be quite good. You may try Courier New - it can be resized. However if you are using very small resolution - you may try some smaller bitmap fonts. For 640x480: 3x5 would be good. You are a programmer, it will be not difficult for you to make your own font :)
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Christian Graus wrote:
you tube videos that slander me
Link?
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
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Hilarious! A shame that annoying computer generated voice made me completely uninterested in what was actually being said, or I might have learned something.
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
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Well, sure. BUT, there's a ton of fonts out there, which would satisfy that problem. Just setting the colour scheme and font size, will do that. To suggest there's an optimal programming font, is the height of ignorance.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
There may not be an optimal font, but there are fonts meant specifically to be tailored for programmers. For example, the Proggy Programming Font family: http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download[^] (I recommend Proggy Clean Slashed Zero Bold Punct) Or the Dina Programming Font: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html[^] [Just read your comments below] I'd go about criticising his lack of Google skills instead.
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Some of my fondest memories of my early programming involve white on a blue background, but I rather like the default colors/fonts for C# in Visual Studio. Whatever you do, just make sure to choose a fixed width font, which further helps scan through code.
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
I'm a huge fan of proportional spaced fonts, makes the whole thing read better for me
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Hilarious! A shame that annoying computer generated voice made me completely uninterested in what was actually being said, or I might have learned something.
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
or I might have learned something.
No, just confirmation of what a jerk CSS is. Only someone so totally unable to argue his case coherently needs to create something like this video, where he puts a load of lies into the mouth of his protagonist in order to try and show his superiority.
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He's an idiot. And he's taken to creating you tube videos that slander me. "I'm looking for something really really great that is specifically designed for programming. " This is ridiculous, I am sorry. The font that suits you, is a personal choice. There are no fonts created FOR programming, or universally the BEST for programming.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Hilarious! A shame that annoying computer generated voice made me completely uninterested in what was actually being said, or I might have learned something.
Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.
aspdotnetdev wrote:
Hilarious!
was that supposed to be funny? I thought captain was "cereal"
