Programming

for me it comes down to: zero vs O disambiguation, good ligatures for arrows (-> =>), and comfortable line-height defaults.

been using JetBrains Mono for a while. the 1/l/I disambiguation is solid and the ligatures are not too aggressive. recently switched a few terminals to Monaspace Neon (from GitHub) which has this subtle texture that's easier on my eyes for long sessions.

the thing i care about more than people realize: how it renders on low-DPI monitors. some fonts that look great on hidpi look terrible at 1080p with no subpixel rendering. JBM handles this better than most.

I'm not terribly picky, mostly just want to distinguish 0 from O and l from 1.

I rather like JetBrains mono though.

Nice to look at. Disambiguates commonly confused characters (l, 1, I; 0, O).

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.

Recently switched to Maple Mono because it is fun and cozy.

I am picky and get bored all the time. These fonts below have had my attention for significant period of time.

1. Used Hack for sometime and got bored of the weird diamond on the zero. Hence, downloaded HackSlash, A patched variant with slashed zero.
2. Fira Code
3. Source Code Pro
4. Customized version of Iosevka mixed with monaco.
5. Input mono but I changed the variants to get curved i, l, J
6. Ubuntu mono
7. Maple Mono (Latest I am trying)
8. Menlo
9. Consolas
10. PT Mono
11. Red Hat Mono
12. 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

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.

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

Good readability of code.

I love Input sans because it gives me a very pleasant retro vibe, especially at heavy weights.

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.

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.

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.

No ambiguous characters, nice ligatures

This came up the other week, https://www.codingfont.com/ can help you narrow down what you find looks the best.

Courier New but 0 has a distinguishing dot.

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.

Perfectly half circle parens

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.

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.

Vibes, gotta feel comfy. That’s why it’s 0xProto nerd font mono for me

Everything VictorMono offers, exactly as offered. Also good for me to be able to distinguish O, 0, and Ø.

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.

Archived ycombinator link: https://archive.ph/y43fV

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.

Pretty colors. That's it