I'm having recurring argues with my colleges about why I set the size of my font to eight pixels (I use tewi right now) even why I use bitmap fonts instead of true type. Other subject are why I use VIM or why I use git on terminal and several others.

Just want to know if anyone of you found yourself in the same situation.

Quote:For each their own.

Apart from that, I can assert that I've been bombarded with the same sets of questions more than once.

You don't always have to reply or even care about what others think of you or your actions. It's not like you are imposing this choice upon them.

Why use X instead of Y?

Do you have an answer to this question yourself? Do you know why you use an 8px bitmap font or are you constructing your answer from something you've read or seen online?

Those are questions that are important to consider. Maybe you'll change your mind about your decisions.

Back on the topic of fonts, I've used tiny bitmap fonts (9 to 12px) for a while under the assumptions that they were "space savers". Was I saving space really? No. Were the font crisper? Yes. Was I considering other options to make my mind? No, I was following a sort of "blind hype" over miniature-crisp bitmap fonts.

Recently I've switched to a 16 to 17px TrueType font which feels more comfortable when in a well lit room and at a relatively good distance of the monitor.
I miss the crispiness of bitmap fonts but that doesn't really matter at 17px, though I wouldn't have a problem with that.

EDIT: related https://debianjoe.wordpress.com/2014/11/...-tool-set/

I don't care what others say about me actually. Just feeling curious.

venam Wrote:Was I saving space really? No.

I can see more lines of code with tewi:8 than DejaVu Sans:13. Explain yourself! D:

(02-06-2017, 08:17 AM)kerunaru Wrote: I can see more lines of code with tewi:8 than DejaVu Sans:13. Explain yourself! D:

How many lines more and why do you need to see that many lines at once.
Why is scrolling not an option?

EDIT: As a programmer you're never looking at the "whole code at once", you're following the state and flow. Your brain won't be able to follow or focus on 600 lines of codes at once, and neither will your eyes. Having them on the screen all at once *is* a waste of screen estate.
EDIT2: Replace the word code with chat. Is it useful to have ton of chat on the screen at once?

venam Wrote:Why is scrolling not an option?

I do scroll with large files but I feel more comfortable having a holistic view of the code, so I don't need to jump between calls in the same class (for giving you an example). I can see 74 lines at once right now. I have an urxvt with ttyload on my host, an urxvt with htop on a development vm and a urxvt with tmux with two tabs, each one with the shell of the system. With a bigger fontface I think I couldn't achieve this development environment.

(02-06-2017, 09:25 AM)kerunaru Wrote: With a bigger fontface I think I couldn't achieve this development environment.

Don't you have multiple workspaces/desktops/tabs?
A pattern I've seen repeating itself amongst developers is that they tend all to converge towards the one full screen program per workspace.

In all cases you can't keep your eyes on all of those things at the same time, wouldn't you agree?

If it is so important for you to see all your code, I'd suggest investing in a 4k screen. Apart from that slightly sarcastic remark, I'm in venams boat: No need to "see" everything, because your brain can't compute it anyways...

yes, i've encountered similar questions many times, about many things. sometimes they are the remarks of evangelists of another competing software (e.g. vim versus emacs), other times they are honest and curious questions.

i personally cannot use a font that size. regardless of how much more i can see. if that was the issue i'd run vim full screen in a distraction free mode. but i like a little style mixed in with my functionality. and for my eyes sake i use gohu size=11.

but if it works for you, go for it! who cares what other people think!

To each their own. I use Inconsolata at 15 or 17 depending, but I have horrible eyesight and need things blown up to read them.

Fonts are purely aesthetic to me, and small fonts just look better. Doesn't really matter which font, I can see just fine using whatever. What annoys me is why people even comment on it. Who gives a fuck, between the wide variety of resolutions people use and just personal taste in general I see zero reasons to question or ask about someones font.

When people ask me about my small font size I just say "I'm far-sighted and smaller fonts simulate distance for me." Whether it's true or not doesn't matter, they leave me alone. I am far-sighted and smaller fonts are more comfortable for me to read, whether it's because of my far-sightedness or not is up to an optometrist to explain. People are more apt to leave others alone about something if that something has to do with a perceived physical necessity (it's like they're too embarrassed to continue discussing it), so it's been a pretty effective response.

So far as my font settings: Dejavu Sans Mono at 8 - 10pt or Inconsolata at 8 - 10pt depending on the program.

(02-06-2017, 07:15 AM)kerunaru Wrote: Other subject are why I use VIM or why I use git on terminal and several others.

Just want to know if anyone of you found yourself in the same situation.

Yes, but more about the other subjects. People have different perceptions of efficiency, I guess.

Whoa! Lots of interesting points of views... Thanks buddies; it's kind of comforting reading your posts :3

(02-06-2017, 07:15 AM)kerunaru Wrote: Other subject are why I use VIM or why I use git on terminal and several others.

Everyone else Wrote:Why can't you act like a normal person and use what we do? It's good enough for us...

If you want to troll people hard with tiny font, you can try this: http://github.com/josuah/miniwi

Maybe they will not dare to ask this time.

(02-06-2017, 08:51 AM)venam Wrote:

(02-06-2017, 08:17 AM)kerunaru Wrote: I can see more lines of code with tewi:8 than DejaVu Sans:13. Explain yourself! D:

How many lines more and why do you need to see that many lines at once.
Why is scrolling not an option?

Not about font itself, but I do not hesitate to add space in code: use blank lines to separate variables declaration at the top of a function, add two blank lines in-between functions... Breath, breath !

What incited me to do so: http://git.z3bra.org/pm/file/pm.c.html

Then, I have no more need for strong syntax highlighting, as then, the keywords, variables... stand out on their own (see http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/pikestyle > Issues of typography).

Glad to see my code as inspiring for other people!
pm is my biggest project (in term of SLOC) so yeah, having everything readable and correctly arranged was a huge requirement. I wanted to see if I could still keep track of the code, even when keeping eerything in one file. I think I did, so I'm happy to see other people using it as an example, thanks!

Regarding fonts, I tend to use what's available, and like the ability to adjust the font on the fly (must life changed the day I realised st(1) can do that!). I do agree that tiny font really look better, and when it comes to readability things must be easy to read. Bigger fonts do help in this case.

I read pages of logs all day, and am constently changing the font. First a tiny one to have the most info available on the screen, in order to search for specific keyword, patterns amd such, and then increase the font by 3-4 points when I find an interesting line to read it comfortably.

Once you get used to it, you can't come back!

(11-06-2017, 06:58 AM)z3bra Wrote: Adjust the font on the fly [...] increase the font by 3-4 points

Some font like terminus have a bunch of sizes available while still being bitmap. Maybe it is possible to build such a font with other arbitrary fonts for every size: At size 10px font-a.bdf, at size 12px font-b.bdf, at size 14px font-c.bdf...

And you may know that it is possible to dynamically load a font for linux in text mode (TTY) with setfont *.psf.

Nobody (except RMS, perhaps) really work in a TTY anymore. We usually all fire up X and put a terminal fullscreen!
The idea of using different fonts for each size sounds fun, but it could be extremely distracting. Like, I change the font to "zoom" on something, which means I have a mental map of what I expect to see at a bigger font. Having the font changed could make it hard to find the text again

I still use Terminus-9 with relatively big screen: 2560x1440, I tried different fonts like JetBrains Mono-13 but it doesn't feel good. Either fonts are too big, but good looking, or fonts are small how I like it, but they look horrible because of smoothing. Font smoothing algorithms are always flawed, you can't produce 0.5 of a pixel without making blurry edge. Terminus is very crisp and consistent at any resolution. If I had 5k or even 8k screen, then I bet regular fonts would be much more usable and beautiful looking at small sizes.

This is something I've been bothered my whole IT career. People do not seem to get it that it is obnoxious for me having a Font size 12 or something on my screen. I hate it.

After all I'm also giving workshops sometimes and there I need a little bit a bigger font and as well black on white to show the hands-on stuff.