2016-08-22

Obj-C articles on (a) overview of debugging command-line, and (b) Frustrating 'block' syntax

Articles of the day for Objective-C programmers:


  • Super useful, clear, and easy-to-read overview of options with the LLDB-based debugger command-line in Xcode 7:  Dancing in the Debugger — A Waltz with LLDB
  • After struggling with the syntax to declare a variable as an Objective-C block, and then assign the block itself, and finally pass the block variable in a method call, I began to think I was too stupid to be a programmer any longer. A DuckDuckGo search showed me the problem is with  the syntax, not my brain: GoshDarnBlockSyntax  (another version of the URL substitutes the words "GoshDarn")

2016-06-18

Quest Continues for Ultimate Programmer Font

San Francisco Mono

Amongst all many annoucements in WWDC 2016 came a new font, San Francisco Mono, called “SFmono” by some Apple folks. This discussion notes that while it appears similar to Google Roboto, this font has its roots in the San Francisco font family first delivered by Apple for use across its platforms. No, not that San Francisco:



This San Francisco:




Colored monospaced type starred center-stage in the posters, logos, web pages, and video intros at the WWDC 2016 event.



Subsequently, I learned of a couple more new fonts for programmers, Operator and CamingoCode. I show these below, along with my favorite programmer fonts, MenloHack and Pragmata.

Operator

Operator is a commercial font from Hoefler & Co. Operator has its own story and video page. Here is an interesting shot of the Atom editor configured with styling.




CamingoCode by Jan Fromm is a commercial free-of-cost monospaced typeface designed for source-code editors. Features include “compact appearance and a moderate line height”, four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic), and manual hinting.


Menlo

Recent versions of macOS have seen the Menlo font bundled. This font is very usable for programming, certainly the best of the bundled font. Seems to be based on the DejaVu Mono font.

Hack

I have enjoyed using the open-source free-of-cost font, Hack. Evolved from the open-source font project DejaVu which came from Bitstream Vera.



Pragmata



But the best all-time programmer font continues to be Pragmata by Fabrizio Schiavi, a commercial font. This font is distinctive for its choice to go tall rather than wide. Comes it three families, a pair of “Pro” families each with 4 styles and one with ligatures and the other without, and the “Essential” family of only two styles and limited to English for a lower-cost alternative.