I did find these links as well

http://www.typophile.com/node/35639

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/punc.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/punc2.htm

I don’t know what your intention for the font is, but as a programmer, who uses monospaced fonts daily, I’ll put my two cents in. I feel most monospaced fonts fail bacause of their punctuation. One of the reasons I think Monaco works so well is it’s punctuation is clear but not overpowering, it’s well balanced with the alphanumeric characters. ProFont’s punctuation is too dark, it overpowers the characters, although it does have a large following. I would like the new Microsoft programming font by Luc(us) de Groot except for the double bowl “g” which bothers me. The punctuation marks have a nice balance but I feel they need a bit more height.

Chuck

I will have to look at Monaco punctuation again.

ProFont’s punctuation is too dark
Agreed.

I have some questions if you don’t mind:

the double bowl “g”
Are you against them in general, or just in mono’s? Also, can you imagine one that you could like or not really? Why?

What size do you use your mono at & at what screen rez? What OS? With or without smoothing?

Do you care about print at all?

Carl Crossgrove gave me some great tips today and pointed me at the punctuation in the Adobe Pro sets. Very Useful!

I am still interested in hearing more.

Again, this coming a programmers perspective.

I’m not against the double bowl “g,” there are some beautiful double bowled “g”s, but in a font for programming, at least in my opinion, it’s a little distracting. Just as in reading a book you want the type to be pleasing, even interesting, but not distracting.

Monaco is a Mac font, it was one of the original set of “city fonts.” I usually use it at 9pt (not smoothed), sometimes at 12pt (smoothed).

Printing is not a big concern for me. That said, Consolas looks better in print then Monaco.

Interesting that two programmers posted here. I’m not a programmer by trade, but have hacked away at more than a few manuals, and have to agree that the use of monospace to represent code is an important application. (When you have monospaced code, then the characters line up correctly in columns ... assuming a monospaced editor font ... this allows easier checking for typos ... if the columns aren’t correct, you have missed a character earlier in a line.)

For programming it is important that characters don’t look the same. One and ell, zero an letter Oh, period and comma, colon and semi colon, all should be distinct from one another at small sizes. The damned code won’t run if you switch the characters.

at least in my opinion, it’s a little distracting.

That’s very interesting. With the ’g’ the tension I feel is between distraction which I agree the double bowl can create, and distinctiveness which the the double bowl has more of. My goal is make a double bowl that retains the former without too much of the the first. I find that reading with double bowl ’g’s works better for me but I don’t know if it’s better in coding or not.

The one thing I have noticed is that programmers feel very strongly about these things. But they don’t all agree at all. The one thing I would really like to have - serious survey of preferences doesn’t seem to exist. Perhaps I can get slahdot or somebody to make a survey. Maybe we could host it ( we have the ability here) & get publicity for it in the relevant places. I’d better see how they feel at Punchcut first though. If they agree my question would be - who would you ask to publicize the survey? Digg?

Perhaps Microsoft has good data on this already & would be willing to share.

two programmers

One actually! I design fonts.

I’m not a programmer or anything, but taking a survey about that sounds quite interesting. You should defenitely see into that. :)

I have made a request to Typophile to let me make a survey now. Perhaps it will work out. :-)

Here are my proposed questions. Feel free to suggest others or to crit these:

............

[ Programmers and Monospace Users: Tell us about your Font preferences ]

Are you a programmer?
Yes; No

Are your font options for programming?
Very good; Okay; Not something I think about; Poor; Horrible

Do you prefer Plain pixels or Aliasing/Smoothing?
Plain pixels; Microsoft Cleartype; Microsoft Smoothing; Apple Smoothing

What rez screen do you use?
Use the closest value if you don’t see your exact size.
800x600; 1024x768; 1280x800; 1680x1050; 1680x1050; 1920x1200; 2048x1280; 2560x1600

What pt size do you use?
Use the closest value if you don’t see your exact size.
7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22

At what size would you prefer your fonts stems to go to two pixels? A Stem is the vertical part of a letter The letter H has two of them.
13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22

What weight do you like punctuation to be as compared to the weight of the font?
Just the same; slightly darker; darker; much darker

What kind of zero do you prefer?
Plain; Slashed; Reverse Slashed; Dotted

Color: Do you color-code your code?
Yes; No

Which do you prefer?
Light text on a dark background; Dark text on a light background

............

Also, where would you suggest we let people know there is a poll so we get a programmer’s perspective?

I think the original question about the ’g’ should also be in it?

Good point. And I would add one about the ’a’ - that can be two or one story too.

I plan to show examples to make sure the ideas are clear as well.

Sorry I’m late to the party here.

I’m a programmer, mostly of Objective-C and Ruby. I’m a member of a few other programmer-related forums (mailing lists, actually) and would be happy to post a link to a survey, once you get it up and working.

You might want to add to the survey a question about use of specific punctuation. As you probably know, different languages use different amounts of punctuation. If you’re a Perl programmer, your curly-braces, dollar-signs, and at-signs will be very important. A Ruby programmer will have a somewhat different set of important characters, a C programmer different still. LISP programmers will care mostly about their parentheses... ;)

Also, I suggest adding a question inquiring of the programmer’s current favorite programming font(s).

—John

John, this is great stuff.

Would you be willing to list the ruby glyphs of choice? & C?

If I get the okay to run the poll I will contact you via the typophile contact form.