acme font

acme font

[Felix]

since proportional fonts screw up diagrams in comments, the solution
is to use device-independent diagrams in comments.  bitmaps are no
good.  postscript would be ok.  (whoops, that should be "pOSTsCRIPT")

and your programming/editing environment should know how to interpret
these embedded diagrams, and automatically pop up a picture for you.
--

acme font

[Castor]

>>>>> "Felix" == Felix Lee <flee@teleport.COM> writes:
    Felix> but there are spare chars in the charset, right?  just grab
    Felix> a swath of 1024 or so and define them to be standard-size
    Felix> lines and connectors for the purpose of block-character
    Felix> diagrams.  the tinkertoy chars.  --

Or use the ones that are there ;-)  (at least in unicode, if not
in the plan9 fonts).

acme font

[Felix]

> I was almost moved to post this to rec.arts.ascii and see what the
> response was.

alt.fan.warlord might be a better choice :)

proportional fonts won't stop (clueless) people from making ascii
diagrams.  one complaint of, urm, prodigy? is that some of its users
make .sig pictures in their software's proportional font, which are
completely unintelligible to non-prodigy users.

but there are spare chars in the charset, right?  just grab a swath of
1024 or so and define them to be standard-size lines and connectors
for the purpose of block-character diagrams.  the tinkertoy chars.
--

acme font

[rob]

>Maybe I mix with the wrong sorts of people, but there are more than
>a few programmers "out there" (myself included) who put diagrams and
>formatted tables in their comments.

>Text diagrams and proportional
>fonts don't mix very well.  I hope that fixed-pitch fonts don't
>disappear until something like literate programming becomes common.

Thank you for adding support to my position.  I really appreciate it.

-rob

acme font

[dhog]

>Maybe I mix with the wrong sorts of people, but there are more than
>a few programmers "out there" (myself included) who put diagrams and
>formatted tables in their comments.

You use comments?  ;-)

>Text diagrams and proportional
>fonts don't mix very well.  I hope that fixed-pitch fonts don't
>disappear until something like literate programming becomes common.

Before that happens, literate programmers have to become common...



Sorry :-)

acme font

[Andrew]

G'day.

rob@plan9.ATt.COM writes:

>A fixed-pitch font is old fashioned.  Outside the Unix domain,
>most computer text is variable-pitch these days.  Fixed-pitch
>will soon follow in the footsteps of CAPITAL LETTERS AND PUNCHED
>CARDS.

I was almost moved to post this to rec.arts.ascii and see what the
response was.

Maybe I mix with the wrong sorts of people, but there are more than
a few programmers "out there" (myself included) who put diagrams and
formatted tables in their comments.  Text diagrams and proportional
fonts don't mix very well.  I hope that fixed-pitch fonts don't
disappear until something like literate programming becomes common.

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage

acme font

[Berry]

>>>Scott Schwartz said:
 > Felix Lee <flee@teleport.com> writes:
 > | your programming/editing environment should know how to interpret
 > | these embedded diagrams, and automatically pop up a picture for you.
 > 
 > Oberon does all that.

So does Cedar.


  --berry

Berry Kercheval :: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

acme font

[Scott]

Felix Lee <flee@teleport.com> writes:
| since proportional fonts screw up diagrams in comments, the solution
| is to use device-independent diagrams in comments.  bitmaps are no
| good.  postscript would be ok.  (whoops, that should be "pOSTsCRIPT")
| 
| and your programming/editing environment should know how to interpret
| these embedded diagrams, and automatically pop up a picture for you.

Oberon does all that.

acme font

[Greg]

[ On Thu, October  5, 1995 at 23:40:38 (GMT), Mikael Cardell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: acme font
>
> A simple, short example on this is this section, ripped from 
> /sys/include/libg.h:
> 
> /*
>  * Codes for bitblt etc.
>  *
>  *	       D
>  *	     0   1
>  *         ---------
>  *	 0 | 1 | 2 |
>  *     S   |---|---|
>  * 	 1 | 4 | 8 |
>  *         ---------
>  *
>  *	Usually used as D|S; DorS is so tracebacks are readable.
>  */
> 
> I hope you're reading this with a proportional font now. This is
> simple enough to be understood even *with* a proportional font,
> but I find a lot of examples in other's code that heavily relies on
> the use of space characters for indentation in both code and
> comments.

What you've got there is a table, which is what 'tab' characters *could*
be used for, assuming we had some way to embed the tabular
specifications inband with the text.  Perhaps this could be a use for
some of the as yet un-allocated characters in Unicode?

I've been day dreaming about such things for years now!  ;-)

Of course this won't help us with editing "foreign" code....

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>

acme font

[Mikael]

Rob and Howard are correct in that a proportional font gives more
characters on the screen and they both advise me to stick with the
proportional font while programming and to use tab indenting to
make it look good. 

I'm perfectly fine with this advise, and I understand, and perhaps 
agree with it. However, it would be simple to follow this advise if
I was only working with my own code or code written by collegaues
that I can communicate with. As it is, I'm often working with 
code written by others, not known to me. And comments in such
code often rely on a fixed font.

A simple, short example on this is this section, ripped from 
/sys/include/libg.h:

/*
 * Codes for bitblt etc.
 *
 *	       D
 *	     0   1
 *         ---------
 *	 0 | 1 | 2 |
 *     S   |---|---|
 * 	 1 | 4 | 8 |
 *         ---------
 *
 *	Usually used as D|S; DorS is so tracebacks are readable.
 */

I hope you're reading this with a proportional font now. This is
simple enough to be understood even *with* a proportional font,
but I find a lot of examples in other's code that heavily relies on
the use of space characters for indentation in both code and
comments.

Thanks for the tip on the use of Font and B2, by the way.

Mikael Cardell <mkc@bull.se>
BOFH @ Telco Solutions, SI&S, Bull Northern Europe
(Do I look like I'm speaking for Bull?)

acme font

[rob]

To change the font, RTFM, in particular the -f and -F options and the
Font built-in command.

It uses a proportional font for several reasons:
	1. to be more readable
	2. to get more text on the screen
	3. to make the tool look less like a teletype

A fixed-pitch font is old fashioned.  Outside the Unix domain,
most computer text is variable-pitch these days.  Fixed-pitch
will soon follow in the footsteps of CAPITAL LETTERS AND PUNCHED
CARDS.

Seriously, if you need more than indentation with tabs to lay
out your program, you're probably worrying about the wrong
things in your source code.

-rob

acme font

[howard]

> I know it's a trivial question, but I guess there is a way to change
> the font in acme.

I suppose you read the man page, and saw the -f and -F options,
but prefer some environmental way of changing the defaults.
Perhaps you should just make a shell function or script to start
acme the way you prefer.

But first: give the proportional font a chance.  You can always
flip a given window between proportional and non-proportional
(execute Font with button 2) if it is critical to see how things line up.

I've been using acme exclusively for years now --- I was the first
non-rob person to do so.  At first, the problems with programming
seem to loom large, but there are two solutions:

() if you are working a program for yourself only: make it look good
  with the proportional font, and the hell with how it looks in
  fixed pitch!

() if you have to collaborate with others, or produce programs that
  look good when printed on paper, develop a programming style
  that needs very few uses of "Font" to see how things line up.
  E.g., I collaborate on a giant ML program with someone who
  doesn't use acme.  Rather than programming in the usual
  ML style (which resembles Lisp style in the attempt to line
  things up with spaces under preceding lines), we use a tab-indenting
  style that is just as easy to read.  And we avoid comments at
  the end of lines.

The additional real-estate advantages of the proportional font
are too great to give up without a fight.  (With my carrera screen,
I can fit three columns of acme comfortably.)

Howard Trickey

acme font

[Mikael]

I'm having a wonderful time running Plan 9 and especially acme,
a wonderful tool, but I don't understand why the default font
for acme is proportional. It's giving me trouble when I use acme
for programming (as if I do anything else in acme besides programming
and e-mailing). 

I know it's a trivial question, but I guess there is a way to change
the font in acme. How do I do it? It doesn't seem to care about a 
change of the font environment variable, and there's no acmefont
variable to set.

Mikael Cardell <mkc@bull.se>
BOFH @ Telco Solutions, SI&S, Bull Northern Europe
(Do I look like I'm speaking for Bull?)