A pox on bad typefaces

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.