11 ms·

Typeface designer here. Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it. I guess the point is that it wasn’t first and foremost designed to fol

by rubjo 3y ago

Typeface designer here. Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it. I guess the point is that it wasn’t first and foremost designed to follow as many font design principles as possible. If that’s what’s important to you, pick a font that follows as many of these principles as possible. :D In the end, I guess I don’t really care whether I use 157ms to parse a sentence instead of 158 - although to me, the font is absolutely super-legible.

redleader55 3y ago
I'm surprised you as a typeface designer are not interested in what end-users(aren't they the customers?) are saying about the font. This means, assuming good intent, that's not where the money is coming from. Can someone shed some light on who pays typeface designers and what are the incentives like?
- cosmojg 3y ago
  Sometimes, people do things for fun.
- nilamo 3y ago
  Can it not just be something that's done for fun, for the benefit of whoever made it?
- tokai 3y ago
  The supporters listed on the page pays.
- admax88qqq 3y ago
  I think he meant he's the designer of _this_ typeface. Not in general. And for _this_ typeface as a labour of love why shouldn't they disregard user feedback when they made it for their own purposes.
zare_st 3y ago
Well you made it explicitly for programming purposes. I am not a poll house or a public opinion evaluator. But handwritten cursive and programming I wouldn't put in a same sentence. The ligatures and the height you choose really don't go well with a lot of popular programming languages. I'm not sure what aspect of programming do you believe is "inhumane" so you have desire to introduce "humanity" through design choice.
- aaarrm 3y ago
  They specifically noted the principles they were designing for in the link if you scroll down, so you can see what their goals were.
- rubjo 3y ago
  Heh well actually I made the font for my own use. Some others have liked it, others have critized features of it, like the italics and the ligatures. (Features one can easily disable in most sane editors, I might add). I’ve been using it daily ever since I made it, and I like to believe it makes me effective and happy. No one should obviously pick a font which is hard to read for them of slows them down. This font doesn’t do that for me personally. If it does that for you, yes, you should probably pick a font where legibility has been the sole focus. (Dyslexia fonts for programming, maybe?)
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    What I like about it is that it makes more use of the vertical space. In programming, almost everything is lowercase or titlecase (snake/camel are the same), so I prefer to have the higher x-height. It's the most legible typeface for me, and I've tried many
  - romwell 3y ago
    >Heh well actually I made the font for my own use. Perhaps you should change the banner on the github page to reflect that. Currently, it says "the best programming font"; whereas your comment implies it is merely "the best font for rubjo". Same goes for your Patreon page. When you take other people's money, you say: >It means a lot to me that you choose to support me this way. With your contribution, I can cover some of the costs for the software and the time used designing the font. Issues / feature requests you might have will be prioritised when possible. Obviously, it should say (quoting your comments here): >Thanks for trying the font. In the end, I guess I don't really care. Issues / feature requests you might have... heh well actually I made the font for my own use. :D You should probably pick a font where legibility has been the sole focus. >To me, the font is absolutely super-legible. If this font is hard to read for you or slows you down, yes, you should probably pick Dyslexia fonts. Finally, saying that people who don't find your font legible should probably use fonts specifically designed for people with Dyslexia is just... ugh. Especially coming from someone who writes phrases like these: - font which is hard to read for them of slows them down - others have critized features of it In the end, it's not about the font. It's about how you respond to people who "critize" your work. And "works for me, have you considered you're dyslexic?" is not a great response. You can do better, and I hope you will. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334154 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334764
andreyvit 3y ago
Hey, I'm in love with this font, the moment I saw the web page, I knew I had to get it installed. Thank you so much! Screenshot: https://dsc.cloud/cfce57/Screenshot-2023-11-19-at-9.31.58-PM.png https://dsc.cloud/cfce57/Screenshot-2023-11-19-at-9.31.58-PM...
pdpi 3y ago
The roman style is pretty legible, yes, and I . The italic, though? It's not a 157ms vs 158ms difference, I legitimately struggle reading it at all, which is a shame because I really like the roman style.
- rubjo 3y ago
  Well, then I guess you can just not use the italic style, or just substitute it for the oblique alternative, or choose not to use slanted style at all, maybe…?
romwell 3y ago
Feels like your response could be abbreviated for clarity: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it [...] In the end, I guess I don’t really care
- caslon 3y ago
  What's wrong with that? A person isn't obligated to have an open source maintainer care about their opinions on where their project should go, even if it can be helpful for them to consider objections. Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad."
  - romwell 3y ago
    >What's wrong with that? Going out of one's way to tell to a person that wasn't talking to you in the first place to say that you don't care about what they said. >Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad." You may notice that the criticism is written in several well-structured and reasoned paragraphs, and not that one line. Perhaps your summary doesn't reflect what was said.
- aeturnum 3y ago
  It's a shame this is all you got from the response because I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts. You're right that it doesn't follow all of the guidelines to maximize readability! There are other fonts that do that but mine does not. That's not what I'm interested in and it doesn't bother me - I find it to be perfectly readable. I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is understanding that guidelines are always about maximizing certain qualities of something and that it's generally ok to choose not to focus on those things. Unless your customers are a captive population of some sort, generally we can all make whatever thing we want and let people who like it pick it up.
  - romwell 3y ago
    >I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting <...> Your rewriting of the comment says exactly the same thing it did before. My assessment of it remains the same. I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is realizing that it's better to say nothing at all than to write "it works for me, use something else if you don't like it" in response to criticism of work that you: 1. Publish online for public use; 2. Describe as "the best font for programming"; 3. Set up a Patreon page to collect money for. Note that the criticism was not addressed to the designer in the first place. The designer went out of their way to find and dismiss criticism with a non-informative "I guess I just don't care". The critic explained why they strongly feel that e.g. curisve italics aren't a good feature for a programming font (moreso described as "the best" one). The designer added no context or insight into why they think differently other than "I don't care", which is, frankly, offputing. It is also disingenuous to sum up the criticism as "does not follow all guidelines for readability". The criticism wasn't about following guidelines; it was about the font being hard to read. Imagine a teacher telling a student their handwriting isn't legible, and the student responding with "I guess I don't care, following all the guidelines wasn't the goal in producing this work, and I myself can read this perfectly fine". We are not that far from this scenario here.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
[flagged]
sombragris 3y ago
Hey, thanks for designing it. Right now I'm using Iosevka but I loved Victor Mono, was my main terminal typeface for a long time, and I loved the high x-height which enhanced readability even at low sizes. Even today it's one of my recommendations for anyone looking for a coding/monospace font.
- rubjo 3y ago
  That’s really nice to hear! Yeah, Iosevka is an absolute beauty :)
roland35 3y ago
Hey that's the beautiful thing about being human, in my opinion :) we all prefer different things and that is OK! Otherwise, we wouldn't need menus at any restaurant since everyone would just get the same "food". Fwiw I like the font and I'm looking forward to trying it out!

by rubjo 3y ago

redleader55 3y ago

I'm surprised you as a typeface designer are not interested in what end-users(aren't they the customers?) are saying about the font. This means, assuming good intent, that's not where the money is coming from. Can someone shed some light on who pays typeface designers and what are the incentives like?

cosmojg 3y ago
Sometimes, people do things for fun.
nilamo 3y ago
Can it not just be something that's done for fun, for the benefit of whoever made it?
tokai 3y ago
The supporters listed on the page pays.
admax88qqq 3y ago
I think he meant he's the designer of _this_ typeface. Not in general. And for _this_ typeface as a labour of love why shouldn't they disregard user feedback when they made it for their own purposes.

zare_st 3y ago

Well you made it explicitly for programming purposes. I am not a poll house or a public opinion evaluator. But handwritten cursive and programming I wouldn't put in a same sentence. The ligatures and the height you choose really don't go well with a lot of popular programming languages. I'm not sure what aspect of programming do you believe is "inhumane" so you have desire to introduce "humanity" through design choice.

aaarrm 3y ago
They specifically noted the principles they were designing for in the link if you scroll down, so you can see what their goals were.
rubjo 3y ago
Heh well actually I made the font for my own use. Some others have liked it, others have critized features of it, like the italics and the ligatures. (Features one can easily disable in most sane editors, I might add). I’ve been using it daily ever since I made it, and I like to believe it makes me effective and happy. No one should obviously pick a font which is hard to read for them of slows them down. This font doesn’t do that for me personally. If it does that for you, yes, you should probably pick a font where legibility has been the sole focus. (Dyslexia fonts for programming, maybe?)
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  What I like about it is that it makes more use of the vertical space. In programming, almost everything is lowercase or titlecase (snake/camel are the same), so I prefer to have the higher x-height. It's the most legible typeface for me, and I've tried many
- romwell 3y ago
  >Heh well actually I made the font for my own use. Perhaps you should change the banner on the github page to reflect that. Currently, it says "the best programming font"; whereas your comment implies it is merely "the best font for rubjo". Same goes for your Patreon page. When you take other people's money, you say: >It means a lot to me that you choose to support me this way. With your contribution, I can cover some of the costs for the software and the time used designing the font. Issues / feature requests you might have will be prioritised when possible. Obviously, it should say (quoting your comments here): >Thanks for trying the font. In the end, I guess I don't really care. Issues / feature requests you might have... heh well actually I made the font for my own use. :D You should probably pick a font where legibility has been the sole focus. >To me, the font is absolutely super-legible. If this font is hard to read for you or slows you down, yes, you should probably pick Dyslexia fonts. Finally, saying that people who don't find your font legible should probably use fonts specifically designed for people with Dyslexia is just... ugh. Especially coming from someone who writes phrases like these: - font which is hard to read for them of slows them down - others have critized features of it In the end, it's not about the font. It's about how you respond to people who "critize" your work. And "works for me, have you considered you're dyslexic?" is not a great response. You can do better, and I hope you will. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334154 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334154 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38334764

andreyvit 3y ago

Hey, I'm in love with this font, the moment I saw the web page, I knew I had to get it installed. Thank you so much! Screenshot: https://dsc.cloud/cfce57/Screenshot-2023-11-19-at-9.31.58-PM.png https://dsc.cloud/cfce57/Screenshot-2023-11-19-at-9.31.58-PM...

pdpi 3y ago

The roman style is pretty legible, yes, and I . The italic, though? It's not a 157ms vs 158ms difference, I legitimately struggle reading it at all, which is a shame because I really like the roman style.

rubjo 3y ago
Well, then I guess you can just not use the italic style, or just substitute it for the oblique alternative, or choose not to use slanted style at all, maybe…?

romwell 3y ago

Feels like your response could be abbreviated for clarity: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts about it [...] In the end, I guess I don’t really care

caslon 3y ago
What's wrong with that? A person isn't obligated to have an open source maintainer care about their opinions on where their project should go, even if it can be helpful for them to consider objections. Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad."
- romwell 3y ago
  >What's wrong with that? Going out of one's way to tell to a person that wasn't talking to you in the first place to say that you don't care about what they said. >Especially when the opinions are simply, "Your entire set of principles are wrong, and this is aggressively bad." You may notice that the criticism is written in several well-structured and reasoned paragraphs, and not that one line. Perhaps your summary doesn't reflect what was said.
aeturnum 3y ago
It's a shame this is all you got from the response because I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting: >Thanks for trying the font and having lots of thoughts. You're right that it doesn't follow all of the guidelines to maximize readability! There are other fonts that do that but mine does not. That's not what I'm interested in and it doesn't bother me - I find it to be perfectly readable. I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is understanding that guidelines are always about maximizing certain qualities of something and that it's generally ok to choose not to focus on those things. Unless your customers are a captive population of some sort, generally we can all make whatever thing we want and let people who like it pick it up.
- romwell 3y ago
  >I think what they said is actually a lot more interesting <...> Your rewriting of the comment says exactly the same thing it did before. My assessment of it remains the same. I think an important part of maturing as a developer (and a human) is realizing that it's better to say nothing at all than to write "it works for me, use something else if you don't like it" in response to criticism of work that you: 1. Publish online for public use; 2. Describe as "the best font for programming"; 3. Set up a Patreon page to collect money for. Note that the criticism was not addressed to the designer in the first place. The designer went out of their way to find and dismiss criticism with a non-informative "I guess I just don't care". The critic explained why they strongly feel that e.g. curisve italics aren't a good feature for a programming font (moreso described as "the best" one). The designer added no context or insight into why they think differently other than "I don't care", which is, frankly, offputing. It is also disingenuous to sum up the criticism as "does not follow all guidelines for readability". The criticism wasn't about following guidelines; it was about the font being hard to read. Imagine a teacher telling a student their handwriting isn't legible, and the student responding with "I guess I don't care, following all the guidelines wasn't the goal in producing this work, and I myself can read this perfectly fine". We are not that far from this scenario here.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

[flagged]

sombragris 3y ago

Hey, thanks for designing it. Right now I'm using Iosevka but I loved Victor Mono, was my main terminal typeface for a long time, and I loved the high x-height which enhanced readability even at low sizes. Even today it's one of my recommendations for anyone looking for a coding/monospace font.

rubjo 3y ago
That’s really nice to hear! Yeah, Iosevka is an absolute beauty :)

roland35 3y ago

Hey that's the beautiful thing about being human, in my opinion :) we all prefer different things and that is OK! Otherwise, we wouldn't need menus at any restaurant since everyone would just get the same "food". Fwiw I like the font and I'm looking forward to trying it out!