What Makes a Good Programming Font?

I'm not a big fonts person, but when I found Bitsteam Vera Sans Mono I knew I loved it:<p><a href="http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/1897/picture68gr5.png" rel="nofollow">http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/1897/picture68gr5.png</a><p>It just looks fantastic to me — I simply don't get the attraction to fonts which look like they came directly from a 1970's typewriter! :)<p>(good anti-aliasing on OSX helps too...)

Linux: Liberation Mono (already in your distro as 'liberation-fonts'). See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts</a><p>Windows: Consolas (install the Word 2007 viewer and you get it for free).

I have been using verdana for two years now and I love it.I also use black on grey background, so my editor looks much like these comments.

I use Inconsolata as an alternative to Monaco: <a href="http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html</a>

CodingHorror has some discussion on this:<p><a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000157.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000157.html</a><p><a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000969.html</a><p>Personally, I used ProFont (<a href="http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/index.html</a>) for awhile, but when I got a new computer I forgot about it and reverted back to Monaco.

<p><pre><code> -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-*</code></pre>

Clean sans serif, monospaced.<p>Consistent baseline.<p>Distinguished forms (i.e., 0/O, S/$, (/{, 1/l, etc.).<p>Good weighting at various sizes.

I'm a big fan of Pragmata. It's the only programming font I've tried that hasn't had nagging annoyances.

terminus by Dimitar Zhekov (we aren't related).<p>"Terminus Font is designed for long (8 and more hours per day) work with computers." <a href="http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/" rel="nofollow">http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/</a>

One where __ looks like two underscores and not a single line.

Honestly, I think Droid Sans Mono is my favorite. so clean

imo, monospaced and something i dont have to think about

We've done this before.<p><a href="http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=328670" rel="nofollow">http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=328670</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=255257" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=255257</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=206686" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=206686</a><p>I'm of the opinion that the third or fourth time a topic is repeated, it (and supporting comments) should be added to a HN Wiki.<p>I think it would make a great resource for us.