Coding and text editors seems like a strange place to discuss typography but essentially it’s the earliest form of interface design. If the Apple Macintosh wasn’t concerned with typography the Mac may never have came to be.

Monaco

For a while I’ve been using TextMate with the Twilight theme chosen and it may be the definitive reason why I continue to use it over BBEdit and Coda, although both support color scheming it does require some work. I like to read in reverse especially when I’m dealing with a lot of text and the Twilight theme provides a subtle enough look that my eyes aren’t strained too much during the day.

An essential ingredient to working with text is the typeface. Previously every text editor I used was set in Monaco 12pt, the default monospace font on the Mac. I have just recently discovered two new highly versatile faces for coding namely, Inconsolata and Anonymous both highly readable, free and worth downloading. My current favorite happens to be Inconsolata in 14pt.

Inconsolata

Inconsolata is available for free download.

Anonymous

Anonymous is available for free download here.

Update (06/11/09): Anonymous Pro now available for free download .

Dan Benjamin wrote a more in-depth article about top 10 programming fonts. He did however questioningly omit Anonymous from his list.