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595 points rbanffy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.256s | source
1. alanh ◴[] No.43511607[source]
I recently opined here that devs should really stop setting their blogs in monospaced fonts, and got downvoted to -4, which is very funny.

It’s TRUE!

Monospaced fonts are a thing for two reasons:

1. Historically, they were all computers did, because it is simpler to have fixed widths. (Remember Knuth's biggest contribution was typesetting -- it is complex). Do you know why the Macintosh changed this? Because Jobs was inspired by a calligraphy course he audited at college

2. Because lining up text is important for programming

Other than that, variable-width text is much easier to scan and read. Yes, even for people who spend a lot of time working with code.

You should also be setting a maximum line-width of about 40em, as it becomes hard to read text when the eye has so far to travel back to the left side.

You also shouldn't center paragraphs 99% of the time, because it’s better when your eye can 'seek' to a consistent left edge (assuming LTR languages!)

If you want to know more, please look it up or ask the nearest LLM!