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 17:53:02 +0200 Organization: Informatimago Message-ID: <87fwq47ggx.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> <87sju47n29.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <33669aa8-47ea-48c5-8dc9-fb216893ef03@f15g2000pro.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1301503264 18280 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2011 16:41:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:41:04 +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 18:41:00 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 1Q4yS2-0005cJ-2i for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:40:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:47819 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q4yS1-0003KT-GW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:40:57 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 41 Original-X-Trace: individual.net jYwJG8rd+lkkGGrlW+j40QpWmISzXxX15n0uSG/42geWLgi8q4 Cancel-Lock: sha1:OTVjM2U4NzU0N2EzZThlYjA3MWRlOGM5MWM3ZjIxYmViZmI4OWFkMg== sha1:1SBDt41Au0zbEgcnGV7F1x7LJsU= 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:186417 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:80542 Archived-At: rusi writes: >> 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? Because you would need strong AI to do it right, and once you have strong AI, you won't care reading program codes anymore. >> 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 That said, it could be argued that manual formating with spaces of program sources tends to anal retentiveness, and it might be wanted to just use a proportional font with correct left indenting, and let the editor format the rest of the line as it wants. After all, spaces are not significant in sane programming languages. At least, as long as the programming language is verbose enough, it wouldn't matter for APL for example. > A particularly tricky problem is that two of the most popular > languages today -- python and haskell -- are space sensitive by > design. Just say no. There are better alternatives. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.