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by fkyoureadthedoc 253 days ago
> Descenders exist for a reason.

Yeah but I wouldn't just assume it's because they are the optimal solution. Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

2 comments

> Look at architectural handwriting, very clear, no descenders.

I just looked it up, and every example I see has descenders in the lowercase letters.

technical drawings and notes are almost always all caps
It doesn’t really count as “no descenders” if you’re only using letters which don’t have any to begin with. And all caps is harder to read fluidly, so that also doesn’t support the point.
Yes, they've specifically chosen to avoid ascenders/descenders for clarity and uniform spacing. I don't see how that's not relevant.
> I don't see how that's not relevant.

Because it’s apples to oranges.

Deciding “my typeface won’t have any lowercase letters” is not the same as “my typeface won’t have descenders”. Technically none of them has descenders, but the former compromises by reducing the amount of characters—which keeps every remaining letterform distinct at the expense of reading fluidity—while the latter compromises by distorting a good chunk of letters—making them ambiguous and harder to read.

I very much doubt architects decided “let’s write everything in all caps because that avoids descenders”.

And again, while looking it up I see no end of examples of technical writing with lowercase letters, and they all have descenders.

Listen brother, some guy said "because this is how it is, obviously that's because it's better". All I did is say idk about that, and gave a simple counter example.

And we're talking about a monospaced font for your terminal. To me, that's more akin to technical drawing than publishing a book.

In my experience technical drawings often use all caps, which have no ascenders/descenders, and you googling specifically to find a counter example doesn't change that. NASA, for example, https://s3vi.ndc.nasa.gov/ssri-kb/static/resources/NASA%20GS...

Many styles of architectural handwriting use descenders in the lower case. (Many other styles forbid or disdain the lower case.)