Comment by ajarmst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajarmst | Hacker News Reader

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Triplicate has a nice look, but l (lowercase L) and 1 (one) are indistinguishable, which is an immediate non-starter for me in a programming font. (CORRECTION: there is apparently a code version that disambiguates these and others. See comments. That means this probably would be a candidate font for me, except:)

I finally just paid for Pragmata Pro, and haven't regretted it. The unicode support is incomparable, and for someone who lives in emacs and console, support for things like the Powerline glyphs and the option to use Emacs' prettify-symbols mode means an awesome user experience.

I actually like ligatures when reading code, less so when writing. The thing I like about prettify-symbols and a font like pragmata pro is that I can toggle between strict representation and a cleaned up version with things like the below replacements:

  (defun aja/pretty-symbol-push-default ()
    (push '("!="      . ?≠) prettify-symbols-alist)
    (push '("<="      . ?≤) prettify-symbols-alist)
    (push '(">="      . ?≥) prettify-symbols-alist)
    (push '("=>"      . ?⇒) prettify-symbols-alist)
    (push '("->"      . ?→) prettify-symbols-alist)
    (push '("lambda"  . ?λ)prettify-symbols-alist))

There's a code variant that disambiguates 1 and l (and others).

Didn't notice that. Thanks for the correction.

But it makes the code Small Caps, which I find unusable in code.

I think you’re confusing Triplicate C4 (C for Caps) with Triplicate T4’s Code variant (T for Text).

PragmataPro compromises readability across the board - here is why: It is compressed/condensed to allow for shorter line widths but legibility suffers.

Put up 2 exactly same code snippets side by side. One in PragmataPro and one with SF Mono (or Consolas, etc.).

I purchased PragmataPro but regret it. Now I use it on Mechanical Drawing dimensions :) It is fantastic in CAD.

I actually like the reduced width because of the way I arrange edit panes, and after a brief adjustment period, have no readability issues at the font sizes I typically use. That's a personal taste thing, though, so I can see that others wouldn't like it. The 'm' glyph is a useful bellwether/canary in that it becomes difficult to distinguish the legs before most other glyphs become problematic. I tend to adjust the font size to one level above where the m's start turning into bricks, and have no readability issues, and still ample horizontal space. I don't generally use the font for publication to others (although I'm experimenting with its use in code blocks). I do often use it in projecting demonstrations to students, although that's typically at a large font size, when the legibility isn't much of an issue, but the narrowness is an asset.

The homepage includes snippets of both the regular and code variants, and they do look pretty distinctive in the code variant.

Which weight of Pragmata Pro did you purchase and use for emacs? Just wondering if I should get all of the weights which is super pricey or I only need Essential PragmataPro Regular/Bold.

I got the full version, but the nature of my job means I can claim a significant part of the cost against my PD funds (It's mostly for books, but I already own more unread technical books than I can complete within my expected lifespan. Thankfully they opened it up to allow software.) I think just the essential would be plenty for the majority of users.

Thank you.

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