Stems between device pixels

write-uptype-and-paper · 16 points · 11 comments

It is not hinting exactly, it is where the stems land. A monospace at a size that puts its vertical stems on half-pixels gets them anti-aliased across two columns, and a column of them reads as fur.

This is why a type scale that lands on whole pixels at the sizes you actually use is worth more than a scale with a prettier ratio. Pick the ratio that makes your most-used size exact.

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11 comments

2026-10-14
A trace, not a profiler. The profiler said the function was fast, which it was.
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2026-10-14
This matches what the errata says, which almost nobody reads.
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2026-10-14
Filed under things I will rediscover in eighteen months and be annoyed about.
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2026-10-14
The naming point generalises. Half our bugs are a name answering a different question than its value.
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2026-10-14
Is there a version of this that works when the window is not fixed?
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2026-10-14
Yes, but it costs a second index and I would not do it under a million rows.
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2026-10-14
I disagree with the framing but not the conclusion, which is an odd place to end up.
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2 more
2026-10-14
This is the one I was looking for last week. Thank you.
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2026-10-14
Worth adding that this only holds if the clock is monotonic. Ours was not, and the failure looked exactly like a slow disk.
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