Comments on: Why do Programmers use Monospace Fonts? http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/ Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:00:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: nemo http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-1596 Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:52:46 +0000 http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-1596 Elastic tabstops solve the formatting problem and allow proprtional fonts to be used: http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/ Elastic tabstops solve the formatting problem and allow proprtional fonts to be used: http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/

]]> by: Amit Patel http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-1268 Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:55:28 +0000 http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-1268 I used to use proportional fonts when programming, and people would peer at me suspiciously. One trick, if your spaces are too narrow, is to use syntax highlighting to make the leading spaces use courier or some other fixed width font, and use proportional fonts for the rest of the line. Continuation lines for multi-line statements don't line up so well with proportional fonts (at least with Emacs), but other than that, things worked pretty well. I used to use proportional fonts when programming, and people would peer at me suspiciously. One trick, if your spaces are too narrow, is to use syntax highlighting to make the leading spaces use courier or some other fixed width font, and use proportional fonts for the rest of the line. Continuation lines for multi-line statements don’t line up so well with proportional fonts (at least with Emacs), but other than that, things worked pretty well.

]]> by: kristian http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-214 Fri, 06 Apr 2007 10:24:03 +0000 http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-214 Ian, I have to admit that I am not sure whether this is some kind of Aprils Fool, but it does sound like it would allow for interesting IDE research. Using Code Browser, I often make meta-documents containing links and descritions of the code and I would love it if I was allowed to do simple formatting (bold/italics etc.) in there. Ian,

I have to admit that I am not sure whether this is some kind of Aprils Fool, but it does sound like it would allow for interesting IDE research. Using Code Browser, I often make meta-documents containing links and descritions of the code and I would love it if I was allowed to do simple formatting (bold/italics etc.) in there.

]]> by: Ian Walker http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-212 Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:00:36 +0000 http://www.chrylers.com/2007/01/19/why-do-programmers-use-monospace-fonts/#comment-212 A long time ago I managed to blag a copy of Fortran Powerstation from Microsoft. For free. Legitimately (really) Microsoft were discontinuing their support and so it was free. So I blagged it. I was then faced with the dilemma of the IDE - there wasn't one. So I looked around to see what was at hand and lo! up popped Word. Yup, good ole MSWORD. It was easy to use macros to compile link and run my monospaced courier code. And then I got to thinking - I knew a lot about word, and knew how to use things such as styles, glossaries, TOCs, figures, tables and embedded objects... I never looked back, and even the current versions of VS etc cannot even get close to what I had with WORD and fortran/C++ etc. I had -styles, color coding, auto gen of docs monospaced fonts -hah VS and others are primitive! The only thing I haven't got going properly yet is (and this should send *shivers* down your spine if you really think about it) is the grammar checker... cheers A long time ago I managed to blag a copy of Fortran Powerstation from Microsoft. For free. Legitimately (really) Microsoft were discontinuing their support and so it was free. So I blagged it. I was then faced with the dilemma of the IDE - there wasn’t one. So I looked around to see what was at hand and lo! up popped Word. Yup, good ole MSWORD. It was easy to use macros to compile link and run my monospaced courier code. And then I got to thinking - I knew a lot about word, and knew how to use things such as styles, glossaries, TOCs, figures, tables and embedded objects… I never looked back, and even the current versions of VS etc cannot even get close to what I had with WORD and fortran/C++ etc.
I had -styles, color coding, auto gen of docs

monospaced fonts -hah VS and others are primitive!

The only thing I haven’t got going properly yet is (and this should send *shivers* down your spine if you really think about it) is the grammar checker…

cheers

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