From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: rusi Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Using proportional (variable-width) fonts in Emacs23 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:20:33 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <33669aa8-47ea-48c5-8dc9-fb216893ef03@f15g2000pro.googlegroups.com> References: <898836.13190.qm@web121803.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <4d9120aa$0$23756$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <47119ce7-b1d1-4967-aa3e-d10112f10510@q40g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <4d9232cb$0$23752$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <516de695-18e0-4442-9616-63bc24b99a58@18g2000prd.googlegroups.com> <4d92ead3$0$23757$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> <87sju47n29.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1301499663 19577 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2011 15:41:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:41:03 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 30 17:40:59 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Q4xVx-0003ic-D0 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:40:59 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:59657 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q4xVi-00033C-0U for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:40:42 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!f15g2000pro.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 98 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 116.73.35.230 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1301498433 16229 127.0.0.1 (30 Mar 2011 15:20:33 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:20:33 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: f15g2000pro.googlegroups.com; posting-host=116.73.35.230; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13,gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:186415 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:80537 Archived-At: On Mar 30, 6:30=A0pm, "Pascal J. Bourguignon" wrote: > Uday Reddy writes: > > On 3/30/2011 3:47 AM, rusi wrote: > > >> By reducing these questions to habits, the implication is that say for > >> younger folk who only know 'modern' technology (like Word) things like > >> emacs will be suboptimal and in fact make no sense. > > > No, I didn't imply that. =A0Monospace may be better for the younger fol= k > > too. =A0Or, maybe it isn't. =A0They will have to try out for themselves > > and figure out which works better. =A0I am afraid I don't have a theory > > of monospace. =A0You are probably looking for one ;-) > > > On the other hand, the notion that proportional fonts are easier to > > read will have plenty of takers. =A0So, everything Emacs can do to > > support proportional fonts will be very welcome. > > Yes, for text. > > For programming languages, even if indentation is correctly impleented, > the situation is more difficult. > > Program readability is often a 2D affair, where you want things to align > in columns to stress on the homogeneity of the structures. > > For example, this first declaration block is more readable (use a > non-proportional font to read my messages!): > > =A0 =A0 var > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 m: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0integer; > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 i: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0integer; > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 color: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0integer; > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 sizeOfTheBox: =A0 cardinal; > > than this other one, where I simulate proportional font with a different > number of spaces: > > =A0 =A0 var > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 m: =A0integer > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 i: integer; > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 color: integer; > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 sizeOfTheBox: cardinal; > > Another example: > > This is less readable: > > =A0 =A0 doSomething(object1,arg1,arg2forObject,arg3); > =A0 =A0 doSomething(o2,arg1,a2o2,arg3); > > than: > > =A0 =A0 doSomething(object1,arg1,arg2forObject,arg3); > =A0 =A0 doSomething(o2, =A0 =A0 arg1,a2o2, =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 arg3); > > because in the later we see immediately that only the first and third > arguments change, while in the former, you need to parse it and give it > more attention. So far I am in full agreement > Unfortunately, Editors with proportional fonts don't > have indenting and formating algorithms sophisticated enough to render > code like in the later example (that would require even more than > understanding the program!). Well that is (may be?) the current situation. Why cant it change? > > So proportional fonts are hoplessly useless for programming. As of now -- yes. In eclipse for example the file explorer window uses a narrow proportional font which saves real estate. Likewise a programmer using emacs uses a number of readonly buffers eg compilation, messages buffer etc. All these could conserve real estate with a proportional font. > > Now of course, emacs has a sizeable user community amongst the > novelists and literature authors, not counting the technical writers > editing software documentation, for whom proportional font support is > nice. Proportional font is good for everyone who has to read though the details differ across genres and some problems are harder to solve than others. A particularly tricky problem is that two of the most popular languages today -- python and haskell -- are space sensitive by design. Changing the number of spaces changes the meaning of the program. This makes a hard problem harder. Still, I dont believe its unsolvable.