Finding the Right Coding Font for Programming in Python

The Real Python Podcast

What should you consider when picking a font for coding in Python? What characters and their respective glyphs should you check before making your decision? This week on the show, we talk with Real Python author and core team member Philipp Acsany about his recent article, Choosing the Best Coding Font for Programming.

Philipp shares some of his background as a font engineer and graphic designer. We talk about how font design tools were his introduction to programming in Python.

We discuss how the frequent use of underscores, at signs, parentheses, and asterisks in Python’s syntax should affect your decision. Philipp’s tutorial provides several resources to help you find a monospace font that fits your coding requirements.

Course Spotlight: Create a Python Wordle Clone With Rich

In this step-by-step project, you’ll build your own Wordle clone with Python. Your game will run in the terminal, and you’ll use Rich to ensure your word-guessing app looks good. Learn how to build a command-line application from scratch and then challenge your friends to a wordly competition!

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:01:32 – Previous podcast appearances
• 00:03:18 – Programming-environment fussiness and monospace fonts
• 00:07:29 – Researching the tutorial and curating the collection
• 00:10:51 – Philipp’s background
• 00:18:07 – Differentiating characters
• 00:21:37 – Monospace, typewriters, and alignment
• 00:25:08 – Character sets to study
• 00:32:38 – The comma and the period
• 00:37:04 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:38:30 – Python’s use in font development
• 00:42:48 – Different fonts for different languages
• 00:49:27 – Non-English comments
• 00:55:40 – Our font choices
• 00:59:00 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 01:01:35 – What do you want to learn next?
• 01:03:41 – Where can people follow your work online?
• 01:04:38 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• Choosing the Best Coding Font for Programming - Real Python
• #79 Font-Engineering und Schriftarten fürs Programmieren mit Philipp Acsany - Engineering Kiosk
• Episode #134: Building Python REST APIs With Flask & Structuring Pull Requests – The Real Python Podcast
• Input: Fonts for Code — Info
• Slashed zero - Wikipedia
• Papyrus - SNL - YouTube
• FontLab - Font editors and converters for Mac and Windows
• RoboFont
• Hedy - Textual programming made easy
• Typing Practice - keybr.com
• Monkeytype - A minimalistic, customizable typing test
• Homerow — Keyboard shortcuts for every button in macOS
• About Philipp Acsany – Real Python
• Philipp Acsany - LinkedIn
• Filip Axani (axani) - Chess Profile - Chess.com

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

• Create a Python Wordle Clone With Rich
• Building Python Project Documentation With MkDocs
• Building Command Line Interfaces With argparse

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas