Why do we use fixed-width fonts in our IDEs? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Why use monospace fonts in your IDE?

Virtually all coders (and code editors) use fixed width fonts. Why is this?

Answer 1

Probably because it makes the code easier to scan - you have "blocks" of code, ie. text that lines up vertically far more often than you would in normal prose. If the font is not fixed width than it wouldn't be visually aligned.

Answer 2

It greatly enhances readability - expecially of punctuation characters which have a very important role in code and which variable width fonts often "squeeze" into minimal space.