Mike Gunderloy's book Coder to Developer suggests, as part of configuring your IDE, that you explore programming specific fonts. I was intrigued, because I hadn't ever considered that. I've been using Courier New 9 for years. A little searching turned up a few links:
One tip: I like the built in Microsoft font TERMINAL for the command and output windows. It scales down to 6pt extremely well and fits tons of text in there.
I prefer the Proggy Square variant of Proggy myself, perfect 8pt font.
Funnily enough I also only started investigating something other than Courier after reading Coder to Developer. 
I also stick with Courier New. On a CRT, I was ok without anti-aliasing, but LCD’s have such high contrast that I need ClearType to read comfortably. (I hope this makes sense to people who prefer the opposite.)
Lucida Console and Courier New remain my top choices for programming fonts
I agree with you. I’ve tried more than a few other fonts myself, but I still haven’t found anything that was better for my eyes than CourierNew or Lucida.
Thanks for that!
It prompted me to go find Andale Mono, which I like - it reminds me of the font I used to use on the Macs back in school. 'Course, it might have actually been the same one…
ther is a ultimate monospace font before consolas:
“lucida sans typewriter” – a font distributed with java (located in \program files\java\jre1.x.x\lib\fonts)
it has higher x-heights than lucida console, a feature that significantly increases readability.
Thanks Veselin–
I like Lucida Typewriter a lot. I added it to the list.
Consolas is great but useless unless you have ClearType on (which I never do):
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000356.html
I would love to get a copy of Pragmata for evaluation. I’m not against dropping $100 on a font if it’s REALLY good and becomes my permanent default… but I can’t tell that without trying it first, and all the font websites have a “no returns” policy.
If anyone reading this has a copy of Pragmata they will loan me for trial, please email me. I swear on scout’s honor I’ll buy it if it becomes my new default, and delete it if it doesn’t.
One feature Courier New has which most “fixed width” or mono fonts don’t is that ALL of its variants are the same width as the regular font. Many fonts, like Lucida Console, while monospace, aren’t constrained in this way.
I do dislike Courier New and would like to find a mono font that has this property, preferably a sans serif one.
OK, never mind. I broke down and bought a copy of Pragmata. The jury is still out on this font, but that’s definitely $108 I’ll never get back 
Yeah, I’m with those that prefer a serif font.
Dude, you are missing one of the best fonts ever. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
I’m an ID10T. Next time, read don’t CTRL+F for Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Christian.
What about Raize Font?
a href="http://www.raize.com/DevTools/Tools/RzFont.asp"http://www.raize.com/DevTools/Tools/RzFont.asp/a
The Raize Font is a clean, crisp, fixed-pitched sans serif screen font that is much easier to read than the fixed pitched fonts that come with Windows. Ideally suited for programming, scripting, html writing, etc., the Raize Font can be used in any IDE or text editor.
The Raize Font supports the following sizes: 10, 12, and 14 points and is available for free.
Hmm. I definitely like that Raize comes in 10, 12, and 14 point. But to my eye it’s vastly inferior to Proggy.
a href="http://dp.rastko.net/faq/font_sample.php"http://dp.rastko.net/faq/font_sample.php/a
for when you really need to track down '`" 0oO iIl1 problems
Jibz has a very nice hand-edited variant of Proggy he calls “Dina”:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html
This is definitely an improvement on an already great font. Very highly recommended; there’s no reason to use Proggy when Dina is available. And he added 8, 9 and 10 point versions PLUS the bolded () [] versions.
Great job guys.
I like Pragmata a heck of a lot at 9 point, but it doesn’t scale all that well to larger resolutions. It’s a really tall font.
I’ve recently switched to consolas. I find it works well. Needs cleartype though, which I know alot of people don’t like. It’s a bugger to get hold of too.
