An interesting article on text rasterization algorithms:
http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.html
After evaluating many fonts for programming, I found Verdana to be the most
readable, for the same reasons described here (though I use 11pt anti-aliased
by OS X):
http://nickgravgaard.com/cgi-bin/elastictabstopsnews/blosxom.cgi/2009/12/22
