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A pox on bad typefaces
Books

I'm frustrated that an overpriced school book for a computer class is written using a crappy monospaced font for the programming examples. The lowercase L looks the same as the number 1.

I'm no designer but I do like it when things actually work. I've found Andale Mono on Windows or Monaco on OS X seem to be good monospace alternatives. Sometimes I wish I lived in the Netherlands or Sweden where good design seems to be a national point of pride. We Americans waste a lot of time on poorly designed crap.

Posted 01/21/06 @02:49 PM · Feedback (3/0)

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You think you've got overpriced book woes? My foreign relations class has four (!) books this semester. Individually, they weren't so pricey, but is four books really neccessary? There's no way we'll get through all four. I hope.

Posted by amanda on 01/21/06 @09:31 PM

Some developers also like ProFont for monospaced use. To its credit, it has several programmer-friendly features, such as a clear separation between Ls and 1s. However, it's very unadorned, almost to a fault. I haven't been able to get used to it, though some might like it.

Posted by Alex on 03/22/06 @04:08 PM

It seems your comment form ate my URL ;). There should be a link in there for ProFont:
http://www.handcoding.com/archives/2003/12/03/profont-monospaced-programming-font/

Posted by Alex on 03/22/06 @04:09 PM

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