alt Hacker NewsCodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font
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I clicked this link with the thought "I'm curious, but I don't think I really have strong opinions about fonts", and was almost immediately proven wrong with the revulsion I felt at Xanh Mono.
Though it turns out that VS Code default (Droid Sans Mono) is (to my eye) basically identical to my winner (Roboto Mono), so the exercise was mostly academic.
Cool, obviously a lot of people are going to quibble about the default lineup (wheres Iosevka?) but for anyone who hasn't nailed down a preference it seems great!
My coding font is comic-shanns-mono, here's how it looks: https://github.com/jesusmgg/comic-shanns-mono?tab=readme-ov-...
Nowadays I use a lot of Iosevka. Previously I was on Ubuntu and JetBrains Mono, both are great fonts. A bit of PT Mono as well, even Terminus for a bit. One of my favorites has got to be Liberation Mono though - the most readable font I’ve ever found, even if Iosevka lets me put more stuff on screen horizontally. Oh also I’ve started enjoying Cascadia Code recently, surprisingly pleasant.
I wish it had my favorite in it so that I could do a blind test to see if it really is my favorite: https://juliamono.netlify.app
I enjoyed this, though my font preferences are pretty stable.
It would be nice if it showed you 1st, 2nd, semi-finalist, quarter-finalist...
It would also be nice to see progress of some kind, a few minutes in I was wondering if I was near completion or just getting started.
I like, as it is quick to decide, and you can see font names afterwards (some indeed looked similar).
At the same time, it would be wonderful if window sizes were more consistent (now things are obstructed, with scrolling, etc). And I would love to download the ranking graph!
I got PT Mono in the game, but this gave me the kick I needed to remember about ProggyClean[1] and track it down. Used to love it many years ago, time to give it another spin and see if it holds its own.
There's a vector version[2] now too!
[2]: https://github.com/bluescan/proggyfonts/tree/master/ProggyVe...
For me it's Berkeley Mono...I was unable to find anything that comes close to it. But this games is fun and the result is a font that is similar to my favourite
I got Anonymous Pro
A few years ago I found comic mono and monofur for Powerline. I switch between the 2 when I get bored of one or the other. I decided I won't try any new fonts, it's a waste of time for me and I hate having too many options to choose from, not only fonts but basically everything else too, it's distracting. Same for my editor's theme, I switch between Braver's Solarized Light and Radical.
This way I can focus on coding and less on tweaking my environment.
As I get older I prefer the text on my screen to be bigger than usual. Most websites tend to have super small fonts for some reason.
For coding I much prefer fonts that are bold and easier to read. Who actually likes these whimsical cursive looking comments or super thin looking fonts?
I ended up with "Roboto Mono" btw.
I stopped looking for fonts after I got comfortable tweaking the metric settings of Iosevka. My current setup exports a set of really compressed cuts (more compressed than Pragmata Pro) which I've always found hard to come by.
Because I'm lazy, and forgetful, I went back to my comment from a previous time this was posted:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42554715
Results: Roboto Mono !
I got Source Code Pro. My daily driver is currently 0xProto, but I didn't see that in the game (admittedly I think it's kinda rarely used).
I'd love to see a page which tracked stats for what the majority of users were picking
Surprised that I picked Oxygen Mono over Noto, but probably because I wasn't aware of Oxygen.
Would be nice to be able to play it with my own fonts because some got eliminated purely because 0 (zero) looked like O (letter). Fira Code was a winner only because there weren't paid fonts that I use.
One nit about the site: the screen elements forced me to make my browser window more than half the size of my screen, and I use a 3840×2160 monitor. My windows are normally about ⅕ the size of the screen and roughly 4:3 ratio shaped. It was nearly unusable like that (I don't suffer issues from almost any other site.)
On the game/bracket: it narrowed me down to Noto Sans Mono and I'm honestly not surprised, it's one of the few fonts that comes with my operating system that I find acceptable.
That being said, what I actually have my terminal and Emacs set to is “AcPlus IBM VGA 8x16” from https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/. I've always been fond of the VGA font and it tickles all the right usability marks for me.
I already use Inconsolata but had customized it to a point where I didn't recognize it here. It won anyway. Validation!
IBM Plex Mono -- I guess no one ever got fired for choosing IBM?
Source Code Pro was my winner in this test. I use Iosevka on a regular base
Ubuntu Mono. I have been using JetBrains Mono for last 2 years and surprisingly I rejected it in a second iteration.
I got Cuisine, I was trying to get Hack.
Doesn't it kind of default the purpose if you can't see it in the actual environment you'd be using it? I know the differences are very minor between terminals and browsers when it comes to font rendering, but this seems like a tool that should be a plugin with the editor people are intending to use the font with, rather than a website.
Played it twice to see if it's reproducible. First time, Fira Code; second time Source Code Pro. Source Code Pro came in second first time round as well. Been using Fira Code until now.
Well, Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono ... - thank you!!!
Obligatory shout-out to Berkeley Mono [1], which understandably isn't on this site because it's a paid font. I really enjoy the customizer that comes with it, I use the font on all my terminal/IDE environments, as well as on my blog.
(FWIW, I just did the codingfont bracket and got Source Code Pro, which I've used in the past, along with Iosevka and Commit Mono)
This kind of breaks for me because I identify all the familiar fonts quite quickly—Consolas, Inconsolata, Iosevka, JetBrains Mono, Fira Mono/Code, Menlo, SF Mono, Courier...
Got Jetbrains Mono. Not a surprise as I used this font for a long time and I still use it for my terminal font.
But I prefer (and use) PragmataPro (not free) and it is not part of the test, sadly.
Every time something like this comes up I always end up with JetBrains Mono.
Doesn't seem to serve rendered samples so you have to set "browser.display.use_document_fonts" to "1" to see anything useful.
Been running Berkeley Mono for years. Before that i flipped fonts and theme like every week. I sometimes wish you could not change font or color theme at all.
ubuntu mono, fira code
Is it weird that I look at most of the offered pairs and think "meh, both are ok, I guess", but do not feel any preference one way or the other?
Like, some fonts look to weird/unusual that I dislike. But most look just fine and I don't really care.
Am I weird? Do I lack taste?
Serifs so I and l look different, monospace so it's possible to use spaces for alignment, and a slash or dot in the zero. What else do I need?
Can we just talk about how good Source Code Pro is?
Fira Code
JetBrains Mono. Makes sense
Roboto Mono, apparently
Mine is Red Hat Mono, but really I don't like any of the presented fonts.
JetBrains Mono
That's the one i have been using for many years, look like i made the right choice
I don't need this many rounds to determine it. There should be "neither" to limit the weird fonts that will never fly.
I'm tired of colors. I wonder if I hate them all or just haven't found the perfect one.
Some previous discussion including a Show HN: from the dev:
Wow, some of these are looking atrocious. (Victor Mono, Syne Mono, Nova Mono)
What I'm missing is DejaVuSansMono which is what I'm using. The result of the test was Ubuntu Mono, which looks okay too.
Courier Prime won for me, I've always been a courier fan I guess because I wrote all my books in the 90s with it..