I'm aware of the flak hurled at Comic Sans. Mostly by graphics designers to whom "fitness for purpose" rates nowhere.
I'm reminded of the hate-campaign directed at Chicago font -- which Apple chose for the Mac's menus because other fonts disintegrated when greyed-out. All aesthetic arguments count for nothing against this one essential requirement. It's truer to say Adrian Smith's APL385 is "inspired by" Comic Sans (for its clarity and letter differentiation), rather than slavishly following it. Adrian designed his font, I understand, because there aren't many non-proportional fonts that are (a) not Courier, (b) legible on the screen at 10pt or less, white-on-black, and black-on-white. Comic Sans itself isn't actually non-proportional: it just has short ems. Ian On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Joey K Tuttle <[email protected]> wrote: > Of interest to typesetters - > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992364819927171.html > > The memory of that article jumped out of the remarks below... > > - joey > > At 20:41 +0100 2009/05/30, Ian Clark wrote: >>Watching this with interest, due to my typesetting task of "At Play >>With J" Edn 2. (See JChat). >> >>It's the considered opinion of BAA Vector typesetters (not just me) >>that (in-line) J is a swine to typeset. APL is relatively benign. >>Periods and colons are unmistakable. A-Z and numerals are sufficiently >>different from the narrative fonts in use by Vector (Book Antiqua). >>There's 50 years of experience with in-line APL. >> >>I haven't seen a proposal yet for a J font which overcomes the >>problems. APWJ Edn1 & 2 uses APL385 Unicode for J code as well as APL, >>to recruit some of the subtle benefits of in-line APL. This is based >>on Comic Sans. I myself when editing the definitive Word document have >>an in-line-J style with a yellow background. The colour is removed >>just prior to generating the camera-ready PDF. We're tempted to leave >>the colour in the PDF -- where it will come out mid-grey. >> >>Alas, incoming source material often lacks clear delineation of the >>in-line J code -- or if present it can't be trusted. It's a >>compounding factor that the back-tick used by Moinmoin to delineate >>in-line J is also a valid J character. >> >>Ian Clark >> >> >>2009/5/30 Björn Helgason <[email protected]>: >>> =. >>> It could be an idea to show the operations with very large fonts and >>> separated by blanks in teaching material so the DOTS will stand out well >>> >>> 2009/5/30 Devon McCormick <[email protected]> >>> >>>> On the other hand, it would be nice to have a display font for J with the >>>> small "dot" characters (period and colon) more prominently emphasized. >>>> >>>> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 12:33 AM, Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> > I believe that "The Design of J", if it had been written, >>>> > would have frowned on such font tricks, having learned >>>> > from the bitter experience with the special characters >>>> > in APL. >>>> > >>>> ... >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Devon McCormick, CFA >>>> ^me^ at acm. >>>> org is my >>>> preferred e-mail >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Björn Helgason, Verkfræ©£ingur >>> Fugl&Fiskur ehf, >>> ®‚erneyjarsundi 23, Hraunborgum >>> Po Box 127,801 Selfoss , >>> t-póst: [email protected] >>> gsm: +3546985532 >>> Landslags og skrú©£gar©£ager©£, gröfu©‚jónusta >>> http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming >>> >>> >>> Tæknikunnátta höndlar hi©£ flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans >>> >>> gó©£ur kennari getur stigi©£ á tær án ©‚ess a©£ glansinn fari af skónum >>> /|_ .-----------------------------------. >>> ,' .\ / | Me©£ léttri lund ver©£ur | >>> ,--' _,' | Dagurinn í dag | >>> / / | Enn betri en gærdagurinn | >>> ( -. | `-----------------------------------' >>> | ) | (\_ _/) >>> (`-. '--.) (='.'=) ?????? >>> `. )----' (")_(") ?? >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
