This is probably one of the worst flames I've seen in a long time.

The funny part is that he complains about "AA zealots", while he clearly is a "non-AA-zealot" just as bad as any "AA zealot" can possibly be.

I know a few (definitely a minority) of people who dislike AA fonts. But as far as I can tell, it's really easy to disable them. And from all I the average user will like them better, so it makes for a sane default to enable them.

So, yes, you zealot, I want my fonts blurry, because I find them easier to read. Sorry for having a different personal taste.

Oh, and then there is an explanation why AA fonts can actually be easier to read then black-and-white fonts. Because they grey levels are more consistent (which btw, is one of the tings LaTeX does very well, keeping the grey level) than if you have to make each pixel either black or white.

Let's say we want to make a line 2 pixels to the right and 1 pixel down. In fonts these things happen...

Here are your options: (Sorry, I forgot one: the hole in the middle...)

the right one is obviously using AA and is "blurred". The left one is "too dark in the middle" and the other two are deformed.

Now let's blur them a bit, like the average non-eagle would see them:

The last one clearly is the best representation of the intended shape (a diagonal line of even thinkness). This is of course different if the intended shape was that it becomes slightly "fatter" here, or deformed. The only sane default for vector fonts is to assume that lines should well, not become deformed or thicker.

I agree that a excellently made black-and-white pixel font might be done in a way that these deformations don't hurt. It doesn't apply to your favourite Helvetica font IMHO, because that font was designed for printing quality.

Now go, and play configuring your "window manager", while I get some work done with openbox as my WM of choice. Because it just sits there in the background and allows me to have all my windows maximized on their own desktops except for my terminals which tile nicely without any zealot WM.