Looks like Atwood is a track baller, shot caller. Did you go MAC?
"You guys are all weak sauce.
I’ve built an adapter that amplifies the signals coming out of my DVI port and converts it to varying levels of electric shock that are applied to a warehouse full of monkeys, each carrying a red, green, and blue dry-erase marker, that I have organized onto a 1920x1200 array against a ginormous whiteboard."
Must love that refresh rate
My problem with larger screens over two monitors is that larger screens force you to always be managing more screen estate. Multiple monitors means you only ever have to manage the smaller screen estate, but you can instantly extend it when you need to by going over to a second monitor.
That argument only works if you don’t live in multiple monitors, but just use the extra screens for reference documents/constant minor sidetasks like IM/etc
I find this quote about the programmer will not be 50% more productive with two monitors very interesting.
Clearly this person does not know basic economics. The programmer only has to be more productive than the cost of the second monitor to make the second monitor a good deal. Clearly, since nice monitors are only about $300 now, a programmer will probably make up that productivity in a couple weeks for sure…
Tell me one thing - why a coder needs more than a 17’ monitor? I think it’s useless.
I have a 3 monitor display.
I’ve used 4 monitor displays.
Three works very well… I cannot imagine going back to 2.
Using four required a lot of ‘where is my mouse’ activity
(even if using that ‘ctrl key’ to locate the mouse…)
Working off a laptop, even with multiple displays, is near impossible now.
I think a lot of the power of virtual desktops depends upon their implementation. I used to use fvwm with an 8 screen-high scrollable desktop but it was really one big contiguous desktop. Using individual desktops just doesn’t feel the same and my productivity drops.
9 monitors good, 2 monitors bad…
http://daggle.com/060406-105831.html
I do taxes. At this point, I’m usually the guy who has a full-screen only tax preparation program open so both the customer and I can see it, and because I’m also the office specialist on difficult cases, I may need to research a stock’s basis online, translate foreign currencies for an overseas rental property case, or contact a law firm (or a brokerage firm’s financial support dept.) for live e-conferencing.
Then I’ve got to have at least a small scheduler window running, so I can book next year’s appointments immediately when I finish up. For program security and legal reasons, I’m not allowed to use things such as the Windows calculator program or external note makers, and certainly not to install something like an mp3 player on this workstation, so I don’t even have the normal small apps many people would put on a second screen, and yet I still would lose about 50% productivity on just one screen, and could probably gain some by going to 3.
Because of security for customers, minimizing the prep window means a ‘possible inactivity’ counter starts, and minutes later, I would have to go through log in again, so just having to set those new appointments on a single monitor would probably add 15 non-productive minutes to my workday or reduce my returning customer base, or both.
At home, I use duals or more on all my PCs, with one box that goes dual monitor even though it’s still set up by default for Win 98, dual boots to Kubuntu Linux, and has six virtual pages when in Linux even with 2560 x 1024 real estate for each page.
I have found that three 20" 1600x1200 LCD monitors is ideal. Any employer that puts up resistance to providing their programmers with at the very least two monitors is a company you do not want to work for since they are obviously pennywise and dollar-foolish.
Of course there will be some decrease in productivity - especially for people who do all commands via the mouse. The bigger the monitor, the more monitors, the bigger the real estate a mouse needs to travel. Plain and simple. Also, beginner users will always be more productive when they have “the task at hand” in focus and uncluttered.
With that… I have two monitors and 5 virtual desktops. I am swtiching between them all the time and could not imagine working any way else. But hey, I also know a fair amount of keyboard shortcuts and dumped the mouse for a wacom tablet. So yes, for the power user more is more.
As the interaction between user and computer change - we dump the mouse for touch screen and hopefully eye tracking - more just might be more. But we are also dumping our desktops for iphones… Planning on a second monitor for that?
I liken the dual (or more) monitor world vs the single monitor world to watching a large screen tv and then watching a movie through a periscope. I feel crippled at work on my one 20" monitor, while at home I have all kinds of productivity opportunities on my dual monitor rig. Large monitors aren’t the answer though - they lose their appeal at around 26" for me. I’d rather have dual 19’s (but don’t tell my wife).
I’ve found my productivity to be roughly equal in the following two setups:
Ubuntu [@ home] 4 virtual desktops on a single 22" widescreen lcd
Windows [@ work] 15.4" laptop screen and 17" lcd
The windows side does feel a little cramped. When I’m working at home things feel about right, with the 22" and laptop screen.
Granted, I do mostly sissy web development on the ubuntu machine, but I still feel the virtual desktops hold their own. I think once your display gets above a certain reasonable minimum size (20-24"), you get more out of adding virtual displays than physical ones. (saves room on your actual desktop, too)
With you Jeff. I had two monitors for about 18 months, then went to a firm who only had one. But when I asked about too, the rational was that it was a bigger 22in monitor. So I said… can I have another one then?
As a developer, one screen drives me crazy moving all the windows around.
On another note, alot of my fellow developers have been moaning about Vista lately, even to the point where one of the guys was getting a new box and persuaded the network guy to put XP on it… Anyone else noticed this vein in development depts?
+1 to portrait mode.
I have 3 20" monitors in portrait mode. I’m a web developer, and I typically have the code in the center window, a browser in the right window, and ancillary stuff (IM, command shell, database shell) in the left window.
I discovered the value of portrait mode by accident. Someone rotated my monitors as a joke. I was too busy to change them back, but soon realized it’s a much more efficient use of the real estate.
I agree that more monitors are more productive when multi-tasking.
It’s a distraction (to me) if I am trying to focus on ONE thing, though. For example, if I have to get a document done - I turn off the second monitor and minimize everything else.
I have to say it seems like a lot of the comments are being made by people who aren’t programmers. People that say they don’t view multiple apps at once are clearly not programmers and the people that site virtual desktops sound a bit like Linux apologists.
I have zero problems using two monitors and in fact I use three at home. It might be that some people are just better at multitasking. For instance at home I play two WoW accounts simultaneously and have one window open to a WoW database website for looking up stuff. Or I’ll play two accounts on two of the monitors and have TV running on the third.
One display, one window (ratpoison)
I’m not going to even bother reading the article.
I work on real-time process control systems and it is absolutely invaluable to be able to tweak the control system and watch the result, either in the operator screens or on a live trend.
Not even an issue in our neck of the woods.
Fred (Three Screens) the PLC guy
As a programmer, I need a large number of windows open at the same time (for different files of source code, debug windows, reference and help pages, etc), even more when I’m working on several remote computers at the same time (I’m talking UNIX). Hence the use of two large displays, what really helps (I prefer dual monitors rather than a single larger one).
But I must say that most often (i.e. many collegues of mine in other dpts), don’t really make an efficient usage of the large display they just got: whatever they do, they do it within a single windows open in full screen. For example I often see a single MS Word document covering their huge display and zoomed at 200%… Even the emptiest window (such as a folder with two or three icons only), they open it full screen leaving a large unuseful empty white space covering the screen. It’s a reflex, they automatically maximize any window…
Not a clever usage. First, they seem to ignore the multitasking capabilities of their OS and a large part of its drag drop features, and then they keep switching between full screen windows, sequencing their work instead of paralleling it. No productivity advantage at all, a single 14" DOS display would allow them same job at no extra cost for the company…
I think there are tasks where large or multiple monitors is literally required such as programming, other design jobs or whenever you must look at multiple windows at once, and some where people can live without it (even though it’d be better anyway as 19" is obviously better than 14"), such as word processing (office work) or single tasked positions.
It’s exactly the same as when I’m doing some mechanical work under the car: I don’t stow each wrench after having undone each nut, but I keep all the tools needed for the job on hand and visible. This, as for multiple or large monitors, unmistakably increases productivity…
I think that once one has tasted dual monitors, stepping back to one simple monitor is a pain.
Raja, having several windows visible at the same time is useful in example when you have to watch many live data coming at the same time, or when you have to carefully compare two (or more) sets of data, or a piece of code you made which has a bug hidden against a working example that you found in a web page…
Or as Kaitain, when you are able to play a game whilst watching TV 
But I agree, having some virtual desktops is close. Having virtual desktops plus dual head is even better. That’s the config I’m enjoying on my SGI box
Anyway, multiple monitors is indisputably better when you’re a programmer, for all the reasons I just mentioned…
Eric