Exploring New Programming Fonts

I’ve been a Consolas user since it came with Visual Studio 2005, but now I’m exploring some new programming fonts.  Unfortunately, there are surprisingly few choices out there if you want a nice anti-aliased font that scales well.

I found a post on Hivelogic that runs down the Top 10 Programming Fonts.  For me, there’s really only 6 possible choices:  Courier New, Consolas, Inconsolata, Droid Sans, Bitstream Vera and DejaVu.

Droid Sans Mono has wider characters, which I like.  But I don’t like what it does to the lower case “g,” and I don’t like how the zero looks like an upper case “O.”

Bitstream Vera and DejaVu are almost identical.  The only difference I can see is in the lower case “m.”  Bitstream shifts it over to the right a little bit, which looks a bit odd.

I’m not fond of Inconsolata.  It’s too “fuzzy” at the edges for my tastes, so it makes me feel like I have to squint more.  Also, you have to crank up the point size from 12 to 14 to match other fonts.

In addition to changing fonts, I’m also exploring larger point sizes as well - moving from 9 or 10 point up to 12 point.  Not only is it easier to see with my aging eyes, but I read somewhere that it encourages you to write smaller functions and shorter lines, which might ultimately result in more readable code.

So my new choice for now is a 12 point DejaVu Sans Mono.  It’s working pretty well so far.