Re:Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no
by xupybd on Saturday May 13, 2023 @07:46AM
(#35927460)
I tried coding in a variable font. It was horrible. I couldn't read the code. I was shocked at how much my brain made use of the spacing to parse code.
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Yes, same.
It's weird in a way, because there isn't all that much alignment going on in my code[1]. There's indentation, but that still works with a proportional font. And yet, it still looks wrong and hard to read. I can't really figure out why.
[1] I know some people align assignments in multiple lines, or comments at the end of the line, or similar things. I've been working under code style directives that prohibited those because lines changed more often because of whitespace than because of content. Since my work requires me not to do that, I don't have the habit at home either.
Re:Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no
by marssaxman on Saturday May 13, 2023 @02:43PM
(#35931362)
Code really is not prose! We use so many skinny punctuation marks that have big structural significance, and variable-width fonts de-emphasize them. I want my commas and brackets made clear and obvious, please.
I did actually spend a year or two coding in a variable-width font, back in the '90s, but I switched back after the novelty wore off.