You can use tabs, that’s exactly their role, but only in theory since in practice elastic tab stops that would work with proportional fonts aren’t implemented anywhere in code, only word processors
no, i can't. i want to be able to align on arbitrary columns, not on tab stops. and when i add or remove character that break the alignment, tabs mess everything up. spaces don't.
No, you can't do that with spaces because spaces have a fixed width, which can't always be aligned to a variable width column. Only in the primitive environment of fixed width fonts does this work, but even there the tabstops can also be placed at an arbitrary column position, check Word out
Sticking to historical limitations can be kind of silly. I used to have a computer with 40-column text display, and I don't feel any need to limit myself to that anymore.
i agree with you in principle, but i am not sure that this is simply a technical limitation. it feels to me more than just a preference. i can't explain it, but looking at the apple systems font example in this article: https://storck.io/posts/proportional-programming-code-fonts/ i find it much harder to parse (visually scanning the structure) than the monospace one below. perhaps it is simply what i am used to. but i feel like i am having a more violent reaction than i should have if mere preference and habit were the issue.
one issue is that of distinguishing similar characters, which the above projects try to address while some people claim it's not an issue at all: https://alexkutas.com/posts/non-monospace-font
there is also the issue of alignment mentioned in the first article, that could possibly be addressed by limiting character widths to multiples of the smallest width.
but there is still the issue of interacting with other programmers, mentioned in this article: https://nelsonslog.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/proportional-fon...
we would all have to agree on the same font if there is any kind of alignment needed apart from indentation. right now we can say that you can choose any monospace font, and things will look as intended, but with a proportional font things will look different depending on the font choice. whether that is an issue or not needs further study i think.
I definitely do not enjoy the font choice in your first link. The Go font has been pretty good for me. My editor is configured to use "Go" (not "Go Mono"), I don't even notice when I switch from editing prose to editing code.
"Distinguishing similar characters" is just as much of a concern for me when I'm editing technical documentation as when I'm editing source code. Once again, the Go font has served me well. Previously I used some other humanist style font from from the Ubuntu people that had that classic IBM slash-through zero. Some fonts have overly-aggressive ligatures and such, but those fonts should not be used in any technical context, source code is not special.
Alignment is a non-issue because wanting alignment is bad. There, solved that ;-) Arbitrary diff noise over multiple lines because you added one line at the end is a problem, not a goal!
I interact with other programmers just fine. Your linked article seems to be re-engaging in the tabs-vs-spaces flamewar in an era of gofmt rustfmt et al. It's a total non-issue.
