When comparing Hasklig vs Microsoft Verdana, the Slant community recommends Hasklig for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Hasklig is ranked 28th while Microsoft Verdana is ranked 105th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great for Haskell
Pro Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid
Pro Completely free and open source
Freely available via GitHub, therefore can be modified and improved by anyone.
Pro Has many variants such as Italic, Bold Italic, Light, Semibold, etc., etc
Pro Free with Windows
Pro Compact while light
Packs lots of information into your screen space while remaining clear and never looking crowded.
Pro Renders perfectly at all sizes
Again, particularly in Windows
Pro Looks absolutely gorgeous in Windows
Looks good elsewhere as well, but the world-class hinting here really comes out with the windows rasterizer (probably optimized for it).
Cons
Con Lacks !=
Some coding fonts with ligatures, like Fira Code, turn != into ≠, but Hasklig does not. The reason for this is that Hasklig was designed for Haskell code, and so turns /= into ≠ instead.
Con Some Ligatures like -<< don't look that good.
Con Has a heavier appearance than Fira Code or Monoid
Con No support for many editors, including emacs
Unfortunately, not supporting emacs is the number one reason I don't use this font all the time.
Con Very cute but not WYSIWYG
You want to see exactly what you've typed, not have your brain have to do a little dance every time you see one of these artifacts.
Con Not monospaced
-if that is an absolute must for you. But don't assume it is until you've tried without...
