If you are a developer you more than likely spend a LARGE portion of you day staring at code. If you lucky enough to have VS Code as your editor (or a handful of others) then you have the option of using a font that supports ligatures! Sorry Sublime users...
I know several developers that don't put any thought in to the font they use while coding. Personally I think this is a mistake. Mainly because it takes so little time to find a font that is specifically designed for coding and is something you enjoy looking at all day.
Ligatures add symbols to your code.
// So instead of =>
// you get ⇒
Is it going to be an earth shattering boost to your programming abilities? Probably not...
Could it make your day of coding more enjoyable? I definitely believe so.
Currently I know of three free and open source fonts that work great!
Enabling ligatures is fairly strait forward. Once you have chosen a font to try there are a few settings to change in your VS Code settings. Your settings can be found (in Windows) at File > Preferences > Settings
.
There are two settings that you have to change. One is the actual font. The other is the setting that enables ligatures in VS Code.
"editor.fontFamily": "Hasklig", // "Fira Code" or "Monoid" are also options depending on what you have chosen
"editor.fontLigatures": true
While the editor.fontFamily
could have the original fonts listed in a comma separated list. I find it pointless since you'll have the font installed (hopefully).
Now go make something awesome and love what you are looking at!
If you know of a free (and ideally open source) font that I missed shoot me a message on Twitter!