On 2022-01-04 4:19 am, J Martin Rushton wrote:
Sorry to disagree, but fixed pitch is _so_ much easier to lay out in an editor. Documentation flows nicely with variable pitch and fancy hidden formats, but for code (and Lily's input is a programming language) you just want the plain line-by-line ASCII. It is, as you say, industry standard; and that is for a good reason.
As a counterpoint, Knuth's work with literate programming [1] showed it was possible to have typographically beautiful setting of code for use in print. His style largely used proportional fonts though some elements were still rendered in fixed width to provide useful contrast. While Knuth's approach is not perfect for every language, I argue the vast majority of programming books out there really should have followed suit. Editors (the people, not programs) seem to struggle with fixed-width typefaces, and typos were abundant.
Going beyond printed documentation, some IDEs like Source Insight enabled and encouraged programmers to use proportional fonts, where horizontal alignment was something handled by the system not the programmer. Though I do concede this was probably a novelty, seeing as these days terminals and editors still rely on fixed pitch.
[1]: http://www.literateprogramming.com/knuthweb.pdf -- Aaron Hill
