Re: Using proportional (variable-width) fonts in Emacs23

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

>> Unfortunately, Editors with proportional fonts don't
>> have indenting and formating algorithms sophisticated enough to render
>> code like in the later example (that would require even more than
>> understanding the program!).
>
> Well that is (may be?) the current situation. Why cant it change?

Because you would need strong AI to do it right, and once you have
strong AI, you won't care reading program codes anymore.


>> So proportional fonts are hoplessly useless for programming.
>
> As of now -- yes.
>
> In eclipse for example the file explorer window uses a narrow
> proportional font which saves real estate.  Likewise a programmer
> using emacs uses a number of readonly buffers eg compilation, messages
> buffer etc.  All these could conserve real estate with a proportional

That said, it could be argued that manual formating with spaces of
program sources tends to anal retentiveness, and it might be wanted to
just use a proportional font with correct left indenting, and let the
editor format the rest of the line as it wants.  After all, spaces are
not significant in sane programming languages.  At least, as long as the
programming language is verbose enough, it wouldn't matter for APL for
example.


> A particularly tricky problem is that two of the most popular
> languages today -- python and haskell -- are space sensitive by
> design.

Just say no.  There are better alternatives.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.