Fira Code

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# Fira Code
## … and why you should care
### Kraig Stevenson
### September 13, 2018

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# Introduction

* Pizza Scientist with data problems @dominos

* Franchise Development
  + where to build new stores?
  + how well those new stores will do?

* Supply Chain
  + what/how many items should stores order for the next 8 weeks?
  + how to help distribution centers anticipate those orders?

* Deploying ML into production
  + navigating complex eCommerce platform
  + containerized microservices
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# What is Fira Code?

* monospaced font with programming ligatures
* ligatures are Unicode symbols for certain operators
* Fira Code is a great font even without ligatures!

.center[![](images/all_ligatures.png)]
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# Why use ligatures?

* interpret multiple characters into a single symbol (or glyph)
* save a little space
* fonts have advanced enough to address this

.center[![](images/code-wo-ligatures.png) ![](images/code-w-ligatures.png)]
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# Why use ligatures?

## **tl;dr** they make code look pretty

.center[![](images/pretty-pic.png)]
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# Enabling ligatures in RStudio

* Tools --> Global Options --> Appearance

.center[![](images/rstudio.png)]
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# What I don't like about ligatures

* Unicode characters don't line up well with other single characters
  + is it still monospace?
* hard to distinguish similar glyphs
* known issues with certain Unix systems
  + https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/4
  + solved with `sudo apt install fonts-firacode`

.center[![](images/gripe.png)]
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# Lots of other tools can use ligatures

* JetBrains
* Atom
* BBEdit/TextWrangler
* Notepad++
* SublimeText
* Spyder

.center[![](images/change-my-mind.jpg) ![](images/drake-fira.jpg)]
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# Links

* https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode
* https://medium.com/larsenwork-andreas-larsen/ligatures-coding-fonts-5375ab47ef8e
* https://www.danclarke.com/fira-code
* https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MonospacedProgrammingFontsWithLigatures.aspx