From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Using proportional (variable-width) fonts in Emacs23 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:30:38 +0200 Organization: Informatimago Message-ID: <87sju47n29.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.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> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1301492455 4070 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2011 13:40:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:40:55 +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 15:40:44 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 1Q4vdc-0008It-77 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:40:44 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53165 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q4vdb-0004l6-KT for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:40:43 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 74 Original-X-Trace: individual.net sVMoqBiSn/SBI1goN0+6hAPgTAbiu1SGNvPwCVgeYgHMbhqluF Cancel-Lock: sha1:NTBiYzVmYWQ1Yzg0MmUzZDk2ZmE1MWU4YTFlOGUxZWZlMTMzZDQ2OQ== sha1:XG8uOUkwsPgiqo00Yv4njyVa4Pw= Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwAQMAAABtzGvEAAAABlBMVEUAAAD///+l2Z/dAAAA oElEQVR4nK3OsRHCMAwF0O8YQufUNIQRGIAja9CxSA55AxZgFO4coMgYrEDDQZWPIlNAjwq9 033pbOBPtbXuB6PKNBn5gZkhGa86Z4x2wE67O+06WxGD/HCOGR0deY3f9Ijwwt7rNGNf6Oac l/GuZTF1wFGKiYYHKSFAkjIo1b6sCYS1sVmFhhhahKQssRjRT90ITWUk6vvK3RsPGs+M1RuR mV+hO/VvFAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== X-Accept-Language: fr, es, en X-Disabled: X-No-Archive: no User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (gnu/linux) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:186410 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:80533 Archived-At: 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. Monospace may be better for the younger folk > too. Or, maybe it isn't. They will have to try out for themselves > and figure out which works better. I am afraid I don't have a theory > of monospace. You are probably looking for one ;-) > > On the other hand, the notion that proportional fonts are easier to > read will have plenty of takers. So, 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!): var m: integer; i: integer; color: integer; sizeOfTheBox: cardinal; than this other one, where I simulate proportional font with a different number of spaces: var m: integer i: integer; color: integer; sizeOfTheBox: cardinal; Another example: This is less readable: doSomething(object1,arg1,arg2forObject,arg3); doSomething(o2,arg1,a2o2,arg3); than: doSomething(object1,arg1,arg2forObject,arg3); doSomething(o2, arg1,a2o2, 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. 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!). So proportional fonts are hoplessly useless for programming. 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. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.