Jeff Atwood revisits the issue of best programming fonts..

[mouser]

From http://www.codinghor...000969.html#comments:

I've experimented with programming fonts and IDE color schemes plenty in the past. But now that I've given in to the inevitability of ClearType on large LCDs, I've basically settled on Consolas. It's hard to beat Consolas. It's darn close to the ultimate monospace programming font in my estimation. That's why I was so intrigued when I read about Inconsolata, a non-denominational OpenType relative of Consolas, which unlike Consolas, works equally well with ClearType enabled or disabled.

Once I tried out Inconsolata, I figured I might as well revisit all the common, popular programming fonts under the same conditions. So here goes.

Jeff's bottom line conclusion about scalable fonts with aliasing:

Personally, I still don't think anything beats Consolas; it's an outstanding monospace typeface design, highly optimized for ClearType display on LCDs.

But do not miss this comment Jeff added in the comments thread:

Of all the per-pixel, fixed size bitmap fonts, I think Dina is the best.
https://www.donation.../Software/Jibz/Dina/

Congratulations to our own Jørgen Ibsen 

[mitzevo]

Yep, consolas is the shiz. 

[f0dder]

I still personally prefer Dina, it's the best coding font I've seen yet. I've never liked cleartype antialiasing (yes, even on LCD/TFT displays), it looks smudgy to me and strains my eyes.

[vizacc]

I wonder if anyone used SAP/3 internal font system?

Their SAP Fonts are wonderful for coding.

[jgpaiva]

I always use cleartype, and thing both dina and consolas are great. I use dina as my primary font for programming, and andale mono for notepad.

Is it me, or inconsolata looks damn fuzzy with cleartype?

[TPReal]

I've recently changed from Courier New to Monaco font, and I think it is very good and clear (maybe apart from < and > characters but you can get used to them also). It is TTF but looks nice also in small sizes, and antialiasing doesn't make it look bad.
I think I would use Dina, as I like it very much, but it has no Polish national characters that's a pity. I need them.

[Ralf Maximus]

ClearType is purely a user preference thang -- either you love it or hate it.  Personally I like it, once it's been tuned properly:

http://www.microsoft...ype/tuner/Step1.aspx

It's important that you run your LCD panel at the same resolution as the number of pixels on your desktop -- displaying 1280x1024 on a 1024x768 panel is a mess.  If you have newer video hardware that does anti-aliasing by default, turn that off.  It interferes with other anti-aliasing schemes.

Also, pumping an analog signal into an LCD panel automatically introduces fuzz.  Use DVI if you can -- the extra cost for new video card + cables is worth it.