zlacker

I remember trying to explain to some colleagues why I paid about 100 bucks for the font I use and why I wouldn’t share it with them and they just couldn’t get it.

(It’s Berkeley mono).

I don’t even know how many glyphs it is (it’s thousands) but for something I’m looking at for 6-8 hours a day, every single day and is the absolute peak of perfection (at least to me), 100 bucks seems like a fucking bargain to me.

shrug I guess these folks never sold something they made completely by themselves maybe.

>>cyberp+(OP)
>shrug I guess these folks never sold something they made completely by themselves maybe.

Not saying font designers shouldn't get paid, but they mostly aren't making things "completely by themselves", they are mostly making derivative works from things that exist, without any consideration for the original authors.

>>cyberp+(OP)
Never really considered it, but taking a quick glance: yes, I'd pay $100 for that too, especially as my main font for programming interface.

>>cyberp+(OP)
The "peak of perfection" does not support even just European languages, not having full coverage even for Latin scripts. But it's a "love letter for the golden age of computing", and the golden age had massive problems with scripts for languages other than English, so maybe it's intentional.

https://usgraphics.com/static/products/TX-02/datasheet/TX-02...

>>cyberp+(OP)
> shrug I guess these folks never sold something they made completely by themselves maybe

Ignoring that they likely didn’t make it completely by themselves (standing on the shoulders of giants and such), it’s quite possible that those people don’t believe that a file should cost money. I’ve made a few things as close to “completely by myself” as possible and given them away for free, and those were physical objects - I lose it when I give it away! I have absolutely no problem giving away 1s and 0s for free, I can make as many copies of the original as I want with no additional effort.

Of course we don’t live in a world where everyone can follow their passions without needing money in return for sharing the result with the world, so it’s fully understandable people want to sell their art. It’s disingenuous and reductive to assume that anyone who doesn’t want to pay for art has never made anything completely by themselves, though.

>>homebr+x3
What percentage of monospace text on the internet uses random obscure glyphs? This isn't really a practical problem.

>>homebr+x3
Hey, Berkeley Mono supports most Western European languages, can you tell me what's missing? I can add it. Btw, the tagline is about the aesthetics. :)

>>Suppaf+k2
What do you suppose they should do to the original authors? Perhaps the original author is Claude Garamond who died in the sixteenth century? Or the unknown workers who carved the inscription at Trajan's column in the second century AD?

>>neilpa+I4
Hi Neil, I'm not that person you replied to but in my projects I require Cyrillic glyphs for Russian and Ukrainian texts. Also when checking out your website just now, I wasn't able to add a Berkeley Mono App License module in your ordering system. I assume I need a App License to embed the font in my app? But I also can't seem to find any information about the app license itself on your site as well.

>>cyberp+(OP)
Same for me, same font, same logic. The author put a lot of hands-on work into making something I stare at all day long. I even just bought a license for a friend for his birthday because I love it.

But I'm not sharing my copy with anyone else. This isn't insulin or something. They'll be just fine without it.

>>testin+59
Cyrillic is not supported so Berkeley Mono might not be suitable for your application. Are you building a Web app (Webfonts) or a Desktop/Mobile app (App license)? Please email me.

>>kccqzy+27
So you understand the issue, it's derivative works all the way down.

>>neilpa+I4
Is it a mistake, on page 4 of the linked datasheet, that "SemiBold" is shown for two different weights? I can't help but think that something like "DemiBold" was what the lighter weight was supposed to be labeled.

>>neilpa+Fb
The lack of the ohm symbol Ω is also quite a bummer given the technical domain of the font.

>>EvanAn+Vc
Yes, that's a typo. Need to redo the entire datasheet and possibly find a way to automate it using reportlab or some other PDF library. Right now, it is in InDesign and it is a pain to keep updating it.

>>jmwils+Ld
Agree, I need to work on the full greek glyphset.

>>cyberp+(OP)
> Berkeley Mono

Link for the lazy https://neil.computer/notes/berkeley-mono-font-variant-popul...

>>neilpa+oe
I've been using Typst to generate PDF reports and it's pretty nice.

>>gus_ma+Uh
And ofc there was a HN discussion;

>>38322793

>>cyberp+(OP)
how does that work? you set this font to be used by all your computers and devices?

>>neilpa+te
If you could remember to include Ancient Greek (pre 1980) accent combinations that would be awesome. It’s not that many extra accents.

(Many Greek fonts today don’t draw the accents and breathings that are used in older texts)

>>wyager+G4
Pretty much anyone coding in another language. Coders do sometimes buy fonts if they are into fonts and nice terminals.

>>Suppaf+Sb
When people say "make completely by themselves", they don't mean that were not influenced by literally no prior works. Artists can say they painted an original work entirely by themselves without needing a pedant to mention that they were probably influenced by prior work.

>>Suppaf+Sb
at a high enough level of abstraction, all creative work is derivative. wouldn't call it an "issue"

>>Suppaf+Sb
Clearly nothing based on Latin script can be original, which itself is based on the Etruscan Old italic alphabet, which itself it based on the Euboean alphabet — ergo, any typeface developed after say the 8th century BC is just a silly derivative.

Everything is derivative, there is nothing new under the sun, and your argument proves nothing.

>>jzacha+EZ
>at a high enough level of abstraction, all creative work is derivative.

Sure, but with fonts you have basically one level between the font they are 'developing' and the one they are copying from. There is work involved, but very little of it is creative work.

>>neilpa+I4
Your website is absolutely beautiful and so well laid out. The examples given really sell the font.

For someone who has never really been a font nerd and has never bought a font—yet: all the add on choices are confusing. Ligatures, I get, but the other options feel overwhelming. Perhaps I'm not quite the market.

>>script+RK
To reiterate the original question: "what percentage"?

>>wyager+vE5
What do you think are "random obscure glyphs"? Is the Turkish lowercase 'i' (ı) one of them? What about the German Eszett (ß)? Is 'ö' a random obscure glyph? What about 'ø'?

>>kiitos+YNl
Yes, those are obscure and unlikely to naturally show up in monospace texts.

What percentage of computer programs do you think are written in turkish?

>>wyager+Lep
Sorry, the question was actually rhetorical: those glyphs are in no way obscure, they're super common. A text isn't monospaced or not, a text is just a text, monospaced is a property of a typeface that can be used to render a text, it's adjacent to other properties of typefaces like serif or sans-serif. When you dismiss stuff like ü or ø or ß or etc. as "obscure" (and, transitively, irrelevant) it comes across as ignorance.