The purpose of a good font is to improve readability. The less of your brain power you are using to translate glyphs into tokens, the more you can use to understand the code. Poor kerning means uneven amounts of whitespace between adjacent characters, which means less information for your visual cortex to use to spot word breaks. Numerous studies have shown that this decreases either reading speed, reading comprehension, or both. If you don't think that quickly understanding the code is important, then I hope I never use any code that you've written.
"The purpose of a good font is to improve readability."
s/improve/provide. You can't improve what does not exist.
"The less of your brain power you are using to translate glyphs into tokens, the more you can use to understand the code."
Yes, that's essentially correct. The best fonts are simple, regular, uniform, yet distinct, providing the brain an easy path to perceiving the information contained in the underlying text.
"Poor kerning means uneven amounts of whitespace between adjacent characters, which means less information for your visual cortex to use to spot word breaks."
While that's true, it really only applies to variable-width fonts. In context of a monospace screen-font kerning is not needed or usable for that purpose. The brain doesn't need to rely on whitespace to determine spacing when that spacing is regular and predictable to begin with! The variable amounts of whitespace, in that context, are a good thing, they let you maintain readability a little longer as you shrink the font smaller and smaller. Main, to use your example, resists becoming Mmn as it is shrunken precisely because of this.
It may well offend your aesthetic sensibilities, and there's no point about arguing those. But your claim that it harms readability is false, and built on a false premise.
-- If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
While that's true, it really only applies to variable-width fonts
That is simply not true, and I'd advise you to go back and read some of the papers from the '60s and '70s when this was being actively researched. You're making a lot of claims after this, but they're not backed up by any of the experiments that have been conducted in this area.
Oh, there's also a small body of evidence that indicates that proportional fonts are better for readability even for programming, as long as you have a typesetter that ensures whitespace is correctly aligned.
I notice you don't bother to cite any of these studies. I've read quite a few, I suspect you realize I'll shred any citations you can come up with here, about as easily as you could shred any report that claimed to prove the sky is red, so you just wave your hand and pretend the motion of air had meaning.
They're either measuring a different sky, or they have defined a different 'red,' or they simply failed at data collection; whatever. The sky is not red, on earth, within normal parameters, for long periods of time. And variable width glyphs are not easier to read than fixed-width glyphs on a video monitor under normal circumstances either, the exact opposite is the case. With variable width the brain has to actually process subtle and not necessarily consistent hints to separate the glyphs into appropriate units before it can begin deciphering them; while with fixed-width glyphs the beginning and end of each and every glyph is always immediately apparent and perfectly predictable.
But go on, believe some misinterpretation of a throw away line in a second-rate usability study you half remember (or don't dare cite because you know it's rubbish) instead of using your brain and thinking it through, or testing it yourself.
-- If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
Wow. I'm not digging out the citations, because I spent several months reading them when I was working on a typesetting project a decade ago and I'm lazy, but there are so many things wrong in your post that I can't even begin to think where to start. I'd suggest that you start with Knuth's work and follow his PhD students' work and the studies that they cite. You've obviously made up your mind, so please keep enjoying your fixed-width font and wondering why people misunderstand what you've written more often than they do anyone else.
This is one of the things that causes me to prefer tabs over spaces for leading indents. With tabs you set how much space each indent involves, and it's easy to line things up properly. With non-monospaced fonts, spaces are apt to not work at all, and if they do work, the amount of spacing is uncontrollably variable.
If you can guarantee that the text will always be displayed in your chosen font, then it's only a matter of the bother of hitting the space bar so often, and it's designed and positioned for that, but if the fonts can't be chosen, then that just doesn't work. Some people have some sort of religious commitment to spaces rather than tabs, but fortunately there's a utility that can be used to process the files before you hand them off.
-- Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday March 07 2018, @09:57AM (7 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday March 12 2018, @03:19PM (6 children)
s/improve/provide. You can't improve what does not exist.
"The less of your brain power you are using to translate glyphs into tokens, the more you can use to understand the code."
Yes, that's essentially correct. The best fonts are simple, regular, uniform, yet distinct, providing the brain an easy path to perceiving the information contained in the underlying text.
"Poor kerning means uneven amounts of whitespace between adjacent characters, which means less information for your visual cortex to use to spot word breaks."
While that's true, it really only applies to variable-width fonts. In context of a monospace screen-font kerning is not needed or usable for that purpose. The brain doesn't need to rely on whitespace to determine spacing when that spacing is regular and predictable to begin with! The variable amounts of whitespace, in that context, are a good thing, they let you maintain readability a little longer as you shrink the font smaller and smaller. Main, to use your example, resists becoming Mmn as it is shrunken precisely because of this.
It may well offend your aesthetic sensibilities, and there's no point about arguing those. But your claim that it harms readability is false, and built on a false premise.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday March 12 2018, @04:46PM (5 children)
That is simply not true, and I'd advise you to go back and read some of the papers from the '60s and '70s when this was being actively researched. You're making a lot of claims after this, but they're not backed up by any of the experiments that have been conducted in this area.
Oh, there's also a small body of evidence that indicates that proportional fonts are better for readability even for programming, as long as you have a typesetter that ensures whitespace is correctly aligned.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday March 12 2018, @10:19PM (4 children)
They're either measuring a different sky, or they have defined a different 'red,' or they simply failed at data collection; whatever. The sky is not red, on earth, within normal parameters, for long periods of time. And variable width glyphs are not easier to read than fixed-width glyphs on a video monitor under normal circumstances either, the exact opposite is the case. With variable width the brain has to actually process subtle and not necessarily consistent hints to separate the glyphs into appropriate units before it can begin deciphering them; while with fixed-width glyphs the beginning and end of each and every glyph is always immediately apparent and perfectly predictable.
But go on, believe some misinterpretation of a throw away line in a second-rate usability study you half remember (or don't dare cite because you know it's rubbish) instead of using your brain and thinking it through, or testing it yourself.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 13 2018, @08:30AM (3 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 13 2018, @05:43PM
Keep denying the evidence of your senses and relying on your misunderstanding of Knuths work. You'll get along well in the industry today.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday March 13 2018, @05:55PM
This is one of the things that causes me to prefer tabs over spaces for leading indents. With tabs you set how much space each indent involves, and it's easy to line things up properly. With non-monospaced fonts, spaces are apt to not work at all, and if they do work, the amount of spacing is uncontrollably variable.
If you can guarantee that the text will always be displayed in your chosen font, then it's only a matter of the bother of hitting the space bar so often, and it's designed and positioned for that, but if the fonts can't be chosen, then that just doesn't work. Some people have some sort of religious commitment to spaces rather than tabs, but fortunately there's a utility that can be used to process the files before you hand them off.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @08:23PM
Can we stop this train? I want to get off.