We need a good code font for the function signatures on dlang.org

[Vladimir Panteleev via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 16 December 2015 at 21:05:27 UTC, Andrei 
Alexandrescu wrote:
> I was looking at 
> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/1169 
> and that bold sans serif proportional text for the code is 
> just... well let's say it's time to replace it.
>
> What would be a good code font to use for those?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrei

Let's stay away from web fonts.

Rationale:

Different text rendering algorithms will render the same text and 
font file in different ways. A font may look nice on one 
platform, but pretty bad on another.

The default fonts (i.e. monospace) are generally set to something 
that will look fine on that system. Other fonts bundled with the 
OS are also likely to look good. Using a custom font may thus 
make the text less readable on some platforms (plus the downsides 
already mentioned in this thread).

I am not completely opposed to the idea of using a web font, on 
the condition that it is tested and does not lead to a downgrade 
of usability on any of the major platforms, but I don't think the 
downsides are worth it.

Looking at what other people are doing (and have much more 
resources to think about such things):

Microsoft (MSDN): Consolas,Courier,monospace
Apple: Menlo,monospace
Android: Consolas,"Liberation Mono",Menlo,Courier,monospace
Go: Menlo,monospace
Java: monospace
Python: Consolas,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans 
Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier 
New",monospace,sans-serif

It seems that all of the above are fonts that are likely to be 
already installed on users' systems.