I’m frequently surprised whenever I see veteran coders whittling away in Windows using Courier New or some equally horrible monospace font. (Yeah, I know this is all subjective, so if you don’t like my opinions, go back to using Comic Sans MS, OK?) Considering how much you can stare at the screen all day if you’re a professional coder, a readable pleasant font could actually improve your productivity and lifestyle, in every Dilbertesque sense.

Windows actually comes with a great monospace font that unfortunately seems to be reserved for use by its console windows only. Macintosh folks have been lucky to have had an excellent monospace font (Monaco 9) since its inception in 1984, and UNIX/X11 people have been blessed with truly excellent monospace fonts (schumacher-clean and good ol’ fixed, whoever made that.)

So, if you’re never thought about your choice of a coding font, check out the following fonts which were made for heavy-duty programmers (complete with slashed zeros; long live the IBM PS/2!). Most of them are available for Windows, the Mac and Linux, too.

• ProFont, my current coding font of choice.
• Metrowerk’s MPW font (Mac OS X only).
• Triskweline
• Proggy Fonts