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Comment by mrighele | Hacker News Reader

Note that if you use a variable width font (and so you don't care much if >= has different width than ≥ ) you can simply use font-lock-add-keywords and map what you need. For example in JS you could use

    (font-lock-add-keywords 'js2-mode '(
    				    ("=>" (0 `(face nil display "")))
    				    (">=" (0 `(face nil display "≥")))
    				    ("<=" (0 `(face nil display "≤")))))

EDIT: It seems that HW doesn't really like U+27A1 ... :-)

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Are you coding javascript in a variable width font?

As strange as it may sound, yes. It took some time to get used to it, but now I find the code easier to read. There are a number instances where the missing vertical alignment is a drawback, for example ASCII art, boxed comments or comments on the right of the code, but since I don't make use of them it is not an issue for me.

I'm not sure I could ever write code in a non-fixed-width font. Maybe if I wrote every line perfectly and never had to navigate back a few lines to make adjustments. But then again, I spend a non-trivial amount of time lining code/variables up and making things just right before moving on that a variable-width font would probabky drive my OCD (Obsessive Code Disorder) levels up to 11.

I don't even want to see what happens when you mark a region and call M-x align in a variable width font.

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