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Programming fonts

Posted on June 17th, 2008.

Finding a good programming font is important. You need to find one that you like (if such a font exists), because it might just make you that little bit more productive.

A good programming font needs to be a monospaced font, which is easy read. The font will also make it easy to distinguish between similar characters, such as “O” and “0″.

I’ve always had trouble finding the “right” programming font. They all seem to let me down in one way or another. To that end, programming fonts have actually had a negative effect on my programming experience. I’m a perfectionist (unfortunately), and if something doesn’t look exactly right, I’ll dismiss it. I’d download a programming font, which had looked good in an online sample. I’d then start to code a little, and I’d soon realise that my code still looked ugly. I’d then go and try another font. It was (and still is to this day) a fruitless search, because no programming font is perfect (nothing’s perfect which is quite frustrating for a perfectionist).

I suppose in reality, a programming font doesn’t need to look good, functionality is much more important. It’s not about how the code looks, it’s about the looks of the application which the code produces, and even more importantly, how that program functions. I should be reminding myself of that fact every time I fall out with a font.

I suppose it’s time for me to come to my senses, and realise that there’s no perfect programming font out there.

Here’s a rundown of some of the better fonts I’ve used over the last few years, and why I gave up on them.

All of the fonts below work best (in my opinion) with Microsoft ClearType turned on.

Courier New

This one’s the old favourite, and the unofficial standard. Almost every programming editor you install will use this font by default. However, it is one of the ugliest fonts out there. Nevertheless, after trying a new programming font for a while, I’ve always come back to it. I suppose it’s because I know it’s going to make my code look ugly, and as a result, I’ve mentally resigned myself to the fact that my code isn’t going to look good.

Consolas

I installed this font after doing a search on Google, and was delighted with it at first. That is until I had to use a semi-colon. The comma put me completely of this font. It’s really ugly and bulky, and ruins the entire font. In addition, the “@” symbol is also a let down compared to the rest of the font.

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono

The letters in this font don’t look as good as those in Consolas. On top of that when working with HTML, the “<” and “>” characters just don’t look right, especially when next to a letter.

Lucida Console

This font looks like it’s been squashed downwards - enough said.

My final attempt…

The last programming font I’m going to try is TheSans Mono Condensed by LucasFonts. It comes at a price, but I hope it’s going to be worth it. It’s growing on me, the letters look great, and it looks great when large, so it’s much easier to read on screen. I’m still deciding if the price was worth it, because as I’ve said, no programming language is perfect.

I’m going to give it a fair chance though.

As you can read, I’m extremely shallow when it comes to choosing a programming font. If it doesn’t look just right, I’ll dump it.

You can find more information on programming fonts on the sites listed below.

• Jeff Atwood over at codinghorror.com has written two posts on this topic. One post focuses on programming fonts without ClearType enabled, and the other focuses on fonts with ClearType enabled.
• This post on typographica.org sparked a lively debate.

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