[bitwize]

This is a Mac program. One of the reasons why the Mac has historically been far ahead of other platforms is because its display could leverage centuries of advances in typography, and not be confined to the a 1970s character cell display designed by illiterates. Ligatures are extremely important for the platform and for the audience.

[coldtea]

We're talking about ligatures in console based programming editors.

Not about setting ligatures for print.

So the whole argument is kind of moot. Having ligatures in console vi is not what made the Mac "historically be far ahead of other platform". In fact for the first 15 years of its life the Mac didn't even have a console.

Even in the desktop GUI program world, where ligatures in programming IDEs and editors are a possibility, they're still an extremely fringe endeavor.

[jonhendry18]

This is true, but terminals tend to be used with monospace fonts that aren't very typographically complex.

That said there may? be languages other than English where ligatures are more than decorative, and would be more useful to have in a terminal.

[bitwize]

I'm saying, maybe the terminals of today need to be more typographically aware, now that the computers of today can more than support it.

[coldtea]

On the list that terminals need to do, being more typographically aware is on the very bottom on my list of priorities.

They could start by not mimicking 50+ year old hardware terminals down to arcane (and performance killing) details, supporting better and more powerful autocomplete and similar interactions, inline images, full colors, and so on...

[gnachman]

It’s important to some people but probably not a majority. Ligatures are a best effort kind of thing. Where trade offs must be made, such as drawing performance, I choose to let the user make that choice.