I'm not terribly picky, mostly just want to distinguish 0 from O and l from 1.
I rather like JetBrains mono though.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
27 points (93.5% liked)
Programming
27067 readers
93 users here now
Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!
Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.
Hope you enjoy the instance!
Rules
Rules
- Follow the programming.dev instance rules
- Keep content related to programming in some way
- If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos
Wormhole
Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Recently switched to Maple Mono because it is fun and cozy.
Connected strokes in italic style, vivify your code.
That's cool and interesting (you can see it in action and toggle-compare on the linked website)
I wonder how distracting it would be in code, though. If it is, their configurability allows skipping that feature though, which is great.
Yea, as its only applied to italics its less distracting than it might seem at first. Your IDE may not even use italics. In VSCode with my theme, italics are used for comments and variable names, which looks like this:
I like to use this style of italics for keywords. (That's also what the Maple examples do.) My thinking is you see keywords so often that you recognize them by shape, not by reading the individual letters. And my theory is that the italic variant being a little harder to read helps my eyes skim over keywords, to focus more on words that I do need to read precisely, like variable names.
It does mean that I spend some time customizing my syntax highlighting theme to make it work the way I prefer. I've got examples set up on my blog. Although that's not Maple - it's a different font with cursive italics called Cartograph CF.
Why is 'l' the only cursive letter (and not connected to anything)? It's kind of jarring
I don't like that one and the same character looks different on the same line (here console.log).
I've been using JetBrains Mono and Maple looks the same but nicer. Thanks!
This is a great find. Thank you very much kind internet stranger
Yes! I built my own variant using their tool (removing the weird italic l etc). I love it.
No ligatures, and no ambiguity between O and 0, l and 1 and I, etc.
No serifs too, I guess. Although I don't think that's very common in coding fonts.
I use Fira Code for coding, mostly because of the ligatures. For console I use Inconsolata because it's compact and good for long console lines.
Nice to look at. Disambiguates commonly confused characters (l, 1, I; 0, O).
Ligatures, slashed zeros, clearly distinguishable Il1/O0, not too big of a gap between lines, and maybe script-like italics. My current main monospace font is IosevkaTerm Nerd Font.
I also find the idea of using retro pixel fonts interesting, but so far couldn't get myself to actually try some of the fonts mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708411 .
I want it to be Iosevka
Thank you for reminding me of this font name. I did a clean install of my OS a few weeks back, and forgot the terminal font I had been using
Mainly that I can clearly distinguish Il1 and 0O. I like DejaVu Sans Mono because it does that; if I'm limited to fonts preinstalled on Windows, Lucida Console works too.
I love iosevka because it's so condensed. You can fit so much on the screen.
Everything VictorMono offers, exactly as offered. Also good for me to be able to distinguish O, 0, and Ø.
I like it, it's pleasant to my eyes. Thanks.
Good readability of code.
I am a big fan of MonoLisa, but it is a paid font.
I wasn’t convinced initially (never paid for a font before!) and found some version of it online, found that I liked it very much, then willingly parted with my money for a license.
I really like the difference between normal and italics, I set up my code editor to use italics for comments.
When you said 'paid' I was thinking £5, not £50 (for the basic version!)
Yeah that’s why I found an “evaluation” version before. Once I saw it was genuinely great I was happy to pay for a license.
I look at this font 12+ hours a day everyday for work, if this was just for ricing a terminal window I agree it is a bit steep.
On PragmataPro, I know it's a bit pricey (60 euros) but I've been using 12 hours a day for years, it has a lot of characters available, supposedly hand-made, and the guy updates it regularly.
I have bought software that was more expensive but had way less usefulness.
Distinct lower case connections
I stopped reading right there 🙂
I use Cascadia Code / the NerdFonts extension Caskaydia Code.
Primarily I look for readability, distinguishability. Ligatures are nice, I came to like them. Eligibility on different font sizes and weight/bold and italic, and colors - they must remain very readable and distinguishable.
I'm using the same font (family) for coding and terminal/console.
I had never heard of that font, I'll try it someday, thanks.
Cascadia Code is a Microsoft font (their most recent coding font). Because the name is protected, Nerd Fonts forks the name.
Perfectly half circle parens
I would like my parentheses to look normal, thank you.
Courier New but 0 has a distinguishing slash.
Edit: or dot. The dot is probably more fitting.
No ligatures.
No ambiguous characters, nice ligatures
I personally use PragmataPro and Berkeley Mono (both paid fonts) because they are pretty, have ligatures, and are narrow enough to show more text on a line.
Edit: I forgot https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ which can be customized to mimic other fonts.
For mono space I've been using Ubuntu mono for a long time, there may be better but it was good enough when I was choosing and I haven't had any issues that made me want to pick a new one. For standard I use open sans.
I really like the Ubuntu font family. Been rocking it on my Bazzite install for a bit now
Not much, disambiguous characters mostly. I've been using M Plus for years because I sometimes need CJK glyphs. Inconsolata, Fira Code, etc. look OK to me. Still haven't found the perfect typeface to fill my developer-typographic font void.
I am picky and get bored all the time. These fonts below have had my attention for significant period of time.
- Used Hack for sometime and got bored of the weird diamond on the zero. Hence, downloaded HackSlash, A patched variant with slashed zero.
- Fira Code
- Source Code Pro
- Customized version of Iosevka mixed with monaco.
- Input mono but I changed the variants to get curved i, l, J
- Ubuntu mono
- Maple Mono (Latest I am trying)
- Menlo
- Consolas
- PT Mono
- Red Hat Mono
- CodeNewRoman Nerd Font
Someone mentioned codingfont.com.. but I spoil it for myself by immediately recognizing the fonts I already got weary of and get varying results just like if I let my picky self choose.
Edit: Probably forgot to mention that I have tried the Nerd font variants and exclusively the NF variants of above fonts like CodeNewRoman NF, BlexMono, CommitMono NF
This came up the other week, https://www.codingfont.com/ can help you narrow down what you find looks the best.
Pretty colors. That's it
Not that big on ligatures in monospace, really. I think I just go with what seems to look kinda nice and has a big enough amount of symbols to not look weird once a few of them are needed.
Also generally prefer dotted zero, or an inverse Ø. Fonts that make 0 and Ø look the same might as well just drop the slash altogether.
In spite of that I've been using Fantasque Sans Mono for years. At least the slash in its 0 doesn't extend beyond the circle like in an Ø.
This is my choice too. I love it.
Vibes, gotta feel comfy. That’s why it’s 0xProto nerd font mono for me
For me, distinguish similar letters such as 0, O, I, l, 1. Then I want ligature because I like them, then emojis should align vertically to the grid, high resolution for small font sizes, size difference between tall and not-tall characters, and it shouldn't have narrow characters.
Last time when I was changing up the font I went to https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads and tried out a couple until I found one that I liked. I'm really picky about the symbol shapes, I most often just bail on a font because the @, % or & is ugly I might also bail if ` vs ' is not distinct enough.
Some fonts have absolutely wild italics that are almost cursive which is a hard pass. Even though I only see it once every week maybe I'm just not up for it.