Re:First chapter of Kernighan and Donovan's new Go book [pdf]
by trevorstrohman on Monday October 19, 2015 @08:44PM
(#10416784)
In this message I'm trying to make the argument I think they would make (I personally use monospaced fonts).
It's not that Acme can't use monospaced fonts, it's that Rob/Russ/others don't want to use them. Proportional fonts are better fonts, so why not use them instead? One possible reason is that existing code formatting conventions assume that text is lined up in columns, but we have a tab key that magically lines things up: it's the whole job of the tab key. So, why not forget about space-based alignment, use the tab key for the job it was built to do, and get the advantage of using pretty fonts?
It's not that Acme can't use monospaced fonts, it's that Rob/Russ/others don't want to use them. Proportional fonts are better fonts, so why not use them instead? One possible reason is that existing code formatting conventions assume that text is lined up in columns, but we have a tab key that magically lines things up: it's the whole job of the tab key. So, why not forget about space-based alignment, use the tab key for the job it was built to do, and get the advantage of using pretty fonts?