[boffinism]

"Arial should be a firing offence"

Grant me the comfortable self-righteousness of people who don't realise their personal aesthetic preferences are not objective statements of fact.

[CharlesW]

> "Arial should be a firing offence"

For people who are only reading these comments and not the article, this is not a quote by the developer of StopTheMadness.

This quote is by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who is required by internet law to take strong positions on literally everything regardless of its relative importance. It should not deter macOS users from checking out the excellent StopTheMadness.

EDIT: To whoever's downvoting, I like John Gruber. He has a sense of humor and would laugh at this characterization.

[quesera]

There are worlds where typography matters.

The web really isn't one of them. But they exist. In those worlds, Arial would be the equivalent of bringing the wrong tools to the job, in front of clients. No one is going to get hurt, but there is reputational damage to consider.

With that said, of course in 99% of applications "firing offense" is a joke of overstated self-importance. And "firing squad" is the same, 110% of the time. Obviously.

[politelemon]

The reputational "damage" would be limited to a small set of obnoxious font snobs whose opinions should not be considered at all, in that catering to their perceptions helps nobody in any useful manner.

[quesera]

Sometimes those people are customers, and they matter a lot.

They're also not wrong. The aesthetic of a typeface is a complicated thing. You have history and precedent to consider, for example.

There are objectively incorrect choices, sometimes.

The irony here is that Arial has always been the substitute because the real thing wasn't available. (i.e. Microsoft didn't want to pay to license Helvetica, whereas Apple did).

So the reaction you're having to the idea of someone substituting the original for the replacement is a bit odd, I think. Maybe you're reacting to the idea of caring. You don't have to care what others care about.

[kergonath]

I am amazed at how many people do not recognise over-the-top sarcasm when it hits them in the face. No, he is not advocating for people to be shot, that’s ridiculous. It’s a figure of speech, that’s all.