Amen, brother :)
On 15 October 2013 17:43, Jimmie Houchin <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10/15/2013 7:46 AM, Camillo Bruni wrote: > >> processing.org uses monospaced font, these are the art guys that have >> more sense graphics >> than any one this mailinglist (BTW, how many of you have visited an art >> school?) >> >> Besides Smalltalk, I don't know any other language that would use >> proportial fonts. >> >> After that, anybody who really knows how to use Pharo can modify it. >> The newcomer is the only one you target... >> > > Regarding Art School. No I haven't but my father-in-law did, one of my > daughters is. Regardless, it doesn't matter. Not that either do fonts. > > Has anybody involved with vim or emacs been to art school? > Two of the most used and fought over editors out there and they are as > ugly as ... Yet their ugliness doesn't deter their advocates. Why? Because > their advocates find value in what you can do with them. > > I am very much in the proportional camp. I spend my day typing, and > writing in proportional fonts. > > One of the nice things about Smalltalk and any higher level language in > theory is that it brings you somewhat closer to natural language. And in > general most things we do in our natural languages is in a proportional > font. And no, I don't believe we need a cognitive indicator which tells our > brain that this is different. We are writing software not an article. > > Once upon a time all or almost everything done on a computer was in a > monospace font. Regardless as to whether or not it was writing software or > writing a novel. > > People who like monospace often prefer underscores and not camelCase. They > also like 79 character line breaks and all other sorts of conventions > created due to the environment they operate in. > > Other languages do not have fonts. They generally do not have editors. > They are quite different from the Smalltalk experience. We should not > impose their constraints into our environment. Users of those languages > choose editors. Users of those editors choose fonts. The language itself > imposes no such constraints or opinions outside of community convention. > > We do not operate in any of those environments. We should not feel > compelled to impose any of those constraints. > > Yes, I agree. We should not be different for different sake. > But, I find value in proportional fonts. Let me repeat that, I find value > in the proportional font. Therefore I do not believe that using a > proportional font is being different just to be different. > > I and most people who are not explicitly placing themselves in this > context, coding, find them to be more readable. Are magazines, newspapers, > books, websites mainly in monospace? Most of what we read is proportional > for a reason. > > Yes, anybody can change their personal use of the system and choose > monospace or proportional. There is great value in establishing a good > community standard for the image. Not necessarily a standard that is > catering to beginners current comforts. But one that is a good community > default. A default which experienced Smalltalkers find productive. Then > provide good learning tools to enable beginners to be on a path of > increasing productivity. A beginner will often stay with what they start > with for a very long time. So if our initial image is one that caters to > beginners, then they may live their a very long time. And not to their > betterment. > > I think we should be comfortable with and embrace who we > (Smalltalkers/Pharo) are. Not seek to change unnecessarily to conform to a > different standard which was established based upon different criteria and > constraints which do not apply to us. > > I personally do not understand how so many people find Smalltalk to be > uncomfortable or difficult. I am far from a pro Smalltalker. But I find > nothing else to be as comfortable and productive as Smalltalk/Pharo. > > My only thoughts is that everybody thinks in different ways. People are > drawn to languages work like they think. And for some people Smalltalk > isn't it. I know I find many languages out there to be less than pleasant > and ugly no matter what font they use. :) > > Just my opinions. > > Thanks. > > Jimmie > > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
