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Re:Category Theory for Programmers by reinhardt on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @03:57PM (#9461263)
What the heck, is it the unofficial Unreadable Site Day today? First https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9460277 and now this.. damn.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by simoncion on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @06:22PM (#9462236)
What?

This site has nearly black serif type on a peach-ish white background. The layout, type choice, and color scheme seems to address pretty much every objection that I've seen the "I can't read light-colored text on any background" crowd advance.

Edit: Here's a screenshot from my machine: http://i.imgur.com/W2QcLAp.png (Chromium 41 on Linux)

Can you explain exactly what makes the site unreadable for you?

Re:Category Theory for Programmers by cleverCostume on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @09:27PM (#9462821)
I agree with the readability issue. The small text is part of it, but I can zoom to adjust that. However, the square alignment is the bigger concern and something I can't quickly remedy as a reader.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by simoncion on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @11:17PM (#9463152)
I'm asking these questions out of a genuine sense of inquisitiveness and an earnest desire to understand what's going on here. I have no desire to belittle or criticize. I'm just confused and quizzical.

What do you mean by "square alignment"? Are you talking about the full-justified [0] body text? If you are, then:

1) This confuses me, as this is exactly what the "I can't read light-colored text on any background" crowd says that studies show improves readability.

2) What about the full-justified body text makes it difficult to read?

If you're not talking about the body text, then what are you talking about?

Thanks in advance! :)

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_alignment#Justified

Re:Category Theory for Programmers by cleverCostume on Sunday May 03, 2015 @03:54AM (#9480421)
We are talking about the same thing.

Kerning is a good thing, it increases readability. In a perfect world everything would be hand kerned for the best results, but that's not realistic. The compromise is automatic kerning, which isn't as good, but isn't too shabby. However, when you full justify text you're forcing the computer to abandon its best attempt at good kerning. Like newspaper on silly putty it gets stretched into spacings that aren't clean. Even if it leaves the spacings between letters untouched that forces it to make large and uneven spacings between words.

Some people might prefer that, and some people might prefer copy set to look like random letters. It's hard to have generalized rules that fit everyone. In general though I think it the standard position taught typography is to not justify text except in special situation.

Re:Category Theory for Programmers by talideon on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @08:27PM (#9462690)
I'm guessing the small text.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by simoncion on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @11:18PM (#9463158)
If his concern is too-small text, then he will surely be happy to learn of his user agent's "minimum font size" setting.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by davidgerard on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @06:36PM (#9462285)
There's a reason Alt-V, Y, N is my favourite Firefox key combination.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by ExpiredLink on Thursday April 30, 2015 @03:56AM (#9463812)
Hey, that's nice!
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by istvan__ on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @07:33PM (#9462524)
Just use zoom, most of the major browsers let you do that. Some even let you define the minimum font size.
Re:Category Theory for Programmers by amaks on Wednesday April 29, 2015 @05:21PM (#9461887)