programming font selection

in the form of a dialog

me: I decided I needed a new font.
I chose one of these,
if you need a distraction, which one do you think I picked?
 
Anne: haha ok, lemme see....
could i get a hint by asking what it was you didnt like about your previous one? :-)

me: l and 1 were indistinguishable.
 
Anne: ha, that's a pretty good reason
that's always annoying
or when lowercase L and capital i are the same, that's annoying too
but pretty common in sans-serifs =/
 
me: anyway, beyond that, the main criteria is clarity, readability, and being able to see a lot of code at the same time, which means small but still legible.

Anne: if you wanted small, the profont would certainly win, but for some reason "proggy clean" is my personal favorite. I think the roundness of the letters makes it more readable than the more condensed, boxy letters...
but which one would you pick?... hmmm...
and my favorite might be because it looks the closest to a non-programmy font, which I'm used to reading

me: Wow.
so yeah, one of my coworkers suggested proFont,
but it was a bit too small for me
I then looked at pragmata, but it was too expensive.
I am currently using proggy clean
 
Anne: yeah, i had to check a couple times to find the differences between proggy and pragmata
they're very similar
but yeah, booyah. :-)
 
me: :-p

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