Pragmata is better!

I’ve been using the free Microsoft Andale Mono (member of Microsoft core fonts) as my “coding font” for last couple of years. It’s been mostly fine, though at times I wished for a narrower font with a more refined zero, more standard-looking lower-case L, etc.

I’ve known of Pragmata for quite some time, but the $108 cost (e.g. at MyFonts.com) has been a deterrent since it’s not possible to test the font before buying it, and since the product is not returnable/refundable. After circling around the font for a long while I finally decided to give it a go, and I’m happy that I did, because Pragmata is better than MS Andale Mono, or Proggy, or any other coding font I’ve tried thus far. So while it’s difficult to say whether the investment is really worth $108, considering the amount of time I spend staring at code, it’d say a good font can be equated to a comfortable chair (almost, at least ).

Depending on how the editor treats the selected font (mainly whether the font is anti-aliased or not), it looks somewhat different in different editors, even at the same point size (while Pragmata scales, it seems to be at its best at 9pt).

I especially like the clarity of wavy brackets, digits, zero (vs. capital letter O). AND smileys don’t look stupid in it!