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Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor?
jammag writes "It was an agonizing moment: a developer arrived at work to realize his second monitor had been taken (given to the accounting dept., to add insult to injury). Soon, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth began. As this project manager recounts, developers feel strongly — very strongly — about needing a second monitor (maybe a third?) to work effectively. But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?"
Ten points if you read this post on your second monitor like I did!
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My opinion is this is largely a consequence of how the Maximize functionality works / has worked.
The ability to half-screen maximize by dragging a window to the left or right side of the screen helps quite a bit -- this is in Windows 7 and newer builds of Ubuntu (IIRC).
My typical reason for wanting a second monitor is the ability to maximize documentation/help stuff on one monitor while the other is reserved for the code itself. I find I work much slower on, for example, a laptop where I constantly have to switch back and forth between different windows to get at what I want.
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When debugging a web-app I find it infinitely easier to have my terminal windows open on one monitor with the code and logs and then use the second monitor for my browsers so I can actually see things *as they happen* instead of trying to do lots of switching.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Ask a non-developer how big their physical desk is, and whether a 18inch desk would be big enough for their work. Surprise surprise - it isn't big enough for a developer's work either.......
I'd much rather have a larger higher resolution monitor than two smaller monitors.
That accounting department might really have needed it.
I *don't* code, I build spreadsheets for a government finance office. Usually I'm translating a spreadsheet that's been helpfully locked into .pdf form by another government agency back into a usable spreadsheet, and being able to glance back and forth without sacrificing the full screen view is sanity preserving.
Actually, regardless of how many physical monitors you already have, I'd say you could get even more benefit by organizing all your stuff across a few virtual desktops as well.
I kinda miss my WindowMaker setup with named workspaces and workspace-specific dock/clip.
Also kinda miss the multi-desktop app thumbnailing I had with e16 (or to some extent the gnome 1.x panel)... useful to keep an eye on what the other virtual desktops were doing.
I bought a 24" monitor a few years back for $170, and a 23" last black frideay for $109. Why fuss about such a minor expense? If two monitors make developers 1% more producrtive, or just make developers feel "pampered" then why not?
However a third is indispensable.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
The company down the street seems quite happy to shell out another $200-$300 to keep that $120,000/year developer happy. If your developer is any good, maybe he'll just go work for them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The second monitor is extremely useful for keeping a browser open for reading Slashdot while I 'work.'
Um... wow... I tend to not want to scroll horizontally to view code. Have you ever put a web page and code side by side, splitting a wide screen monitor in half? Its fucking terrible. Especially when you consider things like, I don't know, RDP in to a testing machine to use different browsers than you are allowed on your machine, while tweaking code, or having email up on one screen so you can just glance over to check mail, or having IM on the other side, or the code definition window on the second monitor. There are tons of reasons. My screen always feels too small when I am forced to use one.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I think having two (monitor) let you work more comfortable and you'll get less stress in closing/opening windows. At home I have one big one, 1920x1080 while at work I have 2x1280x1024. Two monitors are really better. Leandro
Some old, OLD resource kit for windows nt, faffy to set up but best virtual windows app I've used. CTRL F1/F2 whatever to jump around screens so can put the email/browser on one screen, dev tools on another screen, vnc views on other screen, one spare as needed.
For dual screens, I find a second machine with a monitor, vnc server, and win2vnc works well to be able to have more things going on too (though it's usually hulu/netflix during calm times...!).
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I keep a browser open to slashdot visible all the time. if I didn't have a second monitor, how would I get work done?
Juggling with windows when you have to read specifications, code them, check the result, etc. while monitoring a server to see if your data goes through - I had enough of this. Most of developers at our company have 2 monitors but that`s only because we`re on laptops. I still find 2 monitors a bare minimum at home. Mostly because I run VMs, emulators or read Slashdot and listen to music while I have zillion of Eclipse windows opened. If one monitor is enough for you, then you`re not working hard enough! :-)
Oh yes! I love dual screen monitors. 2x22's at work and at home I wanted dual screen so bad I have a 24 and a 17. Proven to make workers more productive. Not sure if it's because they can work on both or keep work on one and Slashdot on the other. That way work occasionally comes in to peripheral vision and reminds them they are supposed to be working.
Agreed on the VM comment, also RDP sessions are pretty tedious when not run in full-screen mode (keyboard shortcuts like Win+R launch on the host, etc). I usually use my second monitor for VM/RDP or small applications that I need to be "always on top", without occupying my screen space (IM, software phone/Skype, Nagios, etc). Some of my coworkers use their secondary widescreen LCD's in portrait mode for spreadsheet editing, to fit more rows.
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If the company wants the programmer to be more productive they'll give them two monitors. That way they can run the application on one screen, or documentation, and have the IDE open on another. Having to toggle between windows while cutting and pasting, or looking for fine detail differences between output, and code is a real real real suck ass aspect of coding.
This could of course be fixed by giving them a larger monitor and fixing the way maximize works in the OS.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
No, but monitors are cheap and programmers time is expensive. A second monitor will usually improve productivity at least to a small degree so it should pay for itself pretty quickly.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
It can help a lot, or it can be a distraction.
Right now, I have an IDE open, terminals to two webservers on the second monitor, and a browser window open on a third. This allows me to see the code, debug outputs, and a user interface all at once, which is more efficient than switching between them. Over the course of a day, little things like that add up to a lot of time and attention saved.
Of course right now I'm reading Slashdot. (Excuse: My code is compiling.)
I have used two monitors, but I prefer a single widescreen monitor with 6 virtual desktops in KDE. Mind you, I program in gvim and konsole, not an IDE.
I've seen a lot of things, but I've never been a witness.
To me, it's not about number of screens, but the total amount of available screen space (both pixels and inches).
I regularly use one large screen (26" widescreen) for most of my work. I find this screen large enough to do side-by-side work when necessary. If I needed to have 3 items open at once (code/documentation/google search?), I would probably find it easier if I had more space than I do.
That said, when I'm really in the groove, I don't want anything but what I'm working on visible on my main screen. If I need a reference document open to glance at once in a while, I do find it better to have it on a separate screen, where it doesn't interfere with my concentration, but still lets me see both at once if I need to.
It's not just developers. I originally discovered the benefit of having a second monitor at a coding job in college - one screen for code, another for a browser to test the code and read documentation, etc.
After that, I bought myself another monitor for my desktop. Two came in great handy for translation - one monitor for source document and reference works, other monitor for your translation. It came in handy for reading electronic documents and taking notes/outlining. It's great for any job where you deal with lots of text, and need to be able to compare different documents, synthesize them, etc.
I'm now up to three. There are diminishing returns, obviously; the third isn't strictly necessary for me, but highly convenient. Any more than this would be tought for me to use effectively, though I suppose a square arrangement of four could be useful for some people.
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First, kudos to Slashdot. This troll article will get a lot of page views.
Second, as a former developer and current manager, the answer is an unqualified yes. I cannot imagine going back to one monitor. The benefit is huge and the cost is incredibly low. I have developers who cost the company in the low 100k range and even if a second monitor cost me $500 (which it doesn't), I need a 0.1% productivity to justify the cost over a coule years. From experience, it provides a heck of a lot more than that.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
But the main point is that TFA is so badly written.
Yeah, way to subtly make your point.
How about instead of the artistic license about what you THINK someone would use a monitor for you look at what real coders use their monitors for.
He seems to be focusing on the 22" instead of the real issue.
Is a coder with two 17" screens as productive (or less or more) as one with a single 22" screen?
i was on one monitor for a long time, once I went to two. its a huge difference. sure, some folks probley dont need them but most do. when doing code compares, or having a test environment up in the 2nd window. it matters.....
It was an agonizing moment: a developer arrived at work to realize his second monitor had been taken (given to the accounting dept., to add insult to injury).
Why the needless troll for accountants? You don't think keeping track of the money in a company is an important task? You really should wake up to the notion that business is a team sport and ALL the jobs matter. Accounting, maintenance, marketing, sales, production, engineering and the rest ALL matter. Only an idiot thinks that their job is somehow the only one that matters.
But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?"
Is it needed? No. Is it useful? Frequently. It also depends on how high the resolution of your primary monitor is. If you have a 2560X1920 monitor, odds are a second monitor is more or less superfluous. If you have a 1024x768 monitor, a second monitor could be very very helpful.
I find that I now have a hard time working if I don't have a second monitor. There are just so many scenarios where it is helpful:
Debugger in one window, running program in the other
Email in one, thing I'm writing an email about in another
Word in one, thing I'm writing a document about in another
Website with how to in one, thing I'm working on in another.
It saves so much time not having to swap windows.
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For the most part, unless you're a programming grunt and do nothing except hack code all day long, you're multi-tasking. Email, IM, a work order system, CVS system, perhaps ERP, CRM, DMS, etc. Any number of systems that may require constant or frequent monitoring. That is where developers (and most other computer jockeys) need a 2nd monitor.
Now...if you're lucky enough to be able to say, "Look, I'm coding this afternoon and I'll be unavailable entirely until I get done," and then you can close everything, open up your project, and hack/slash at it for a few hours interrupt-free, that's wonderful, and you probably only need one monitor. But I don't know of too many positions like that these days, where so many people are called to be Jack-of-all in most positions.
In the end, monitors are bloody cheap. If the developer wants one, GET HIM/HER ONE. The cost is extremely minor compared to the value it'll bring to their attitude if they think their needs are being met. It'll pay for itself easily.
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$80k Programmer * 5% increase in productivity = $4k in gain for the company.
Second monitor clocks in at around $300 + energy costs.
Hmm...
Have you ever gone from two monitors to one, though? You don't make it clear in your post.
If you haven't, try it sometime (disconnect your second monitor or something). It's incredibly painful.
Besides, two moderately sized monitors are often cheaper than one huge one. In any case more screen real estate is definitely helpful.
I would go crazy trying to develop on only one monitor. In fact, I could use a third, but it's not worth getting a new video card for it.
Also, from the article, the idea of a second monitor being a "perk", comparable to a free lunch, is stupid. A second monitor is a tool to do work that directly affects productivity. A free lunch is just another way to get paid. The two are completely unrelated.
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We frequently have to refer to documentation or examples when developing and having both the code and the reference side by side really helps. There's something very nice about having two fully separate contexts of information to look at. For some reason, it's a lot less distracting to me than having it on one screen where I have to worry about other windows covering it up, etc. If the developers want another monitor, spend the couple hundred bucks and get them one. These are skilled workers/artists that should be given whatever reasonable accommodations (and the occasional unreasonable ones) they need in order to perform their job functions in a comfortable way. Any place that would call me a pampered developer for asking for a second monitor really doesn't sound like a very good place to work as a developer. Is $100-$400 really that much money given the type of work?
I mean seriously, if you can't do your job with one monitor, there is something wrong.
On the other hand, if you can't gain enough productivity from a second monitor to justify its purchase, there is also something wrong. My second monitor easily saves me 2-3 minutes of tabbing a day, minimum. Most good coders cost at least a dollar per minute. That's say just $2 per day, so a second monitor pays for itself in 100 business days or less.
So a company that won't pay for a second monitor if you want one is likely run by idiots who are wasting your time and their money. Move on to another job.
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Virtual desktops, I couldn't work without them.
New things are always on the horizon
I'm doing web testing using Selenium. I have my log file up on one screen and the other screen is where my 13 firefox browsers for the app suite show up. Yes, I do use a single screen (when I VPN to work from home and I'm using my home laptop) to Rdesktop into my work machine. When I run my tests on the single montior, I have to just run the tests,then wait until they're finished to look at the log file.
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I focus on one thing at a time. I'm an old fashioned compulsive maximizer. More screen is not always better. I've seen people use multiple monitors, they have to micromanage the windows themselves. I doubt there is a difference in productivity with two monitors. More stimuli does not necessary mean you'll perform better. I like to do one thing at a time, keep all alerts, email alerts and anything that could pop up off. It keeps you in the zone. I do the same with my phone. It's on silent and makes no noise. Check your email every 15 minutes or so, don't wait for it to pop in the corner of your eye. That context switches in your head are not worth it.
I bet there are window managers that micromanage windows it for you or let you have a different workspace on each screen. Windows is rubbish with multiple screens, always puts things on the wrong screen.
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Without my second monitor, I can't easily get to my 3rd or 4th.
Thank god for Synergy+ ... My corporate PC with Outlook is far right... 2 middle monitors are my coding monitors, and consoles to my embedded targets, jtag debugger window, etc... Far left monitor is web browser and datasheet displayer. I might even pull up a logic analyzer window on the far left.
My cows used to make fun of me but I see they all now have at least 2 monitors and some of them 3 or 4...
And given prices of monitors these days, it really only needs to save a developer a few hours a year to pay for itself.
Sure, I could live without it. I could write code in vi instead of Eclipse, too, but why?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I use it mostly when debugging an application. Walk through the code on one monitor and see where it is in the application on the other monitor. I also have a system where I keep applications that I don't need often like Email, TextEditor, or Source Control on one monitor and applications that I use a lot on the other monitor like Code Editor, SQL Editor, and of course a Chrome Browser.
Meh, I've worked places with 4 of those monitors attached to one machine. It was sorta useful for monitoring several 1080p video streams and the audience and status displays, but I think it was still kinda slightly overkill. Just slightly, though.
One for coding, one for documentation reading.
Or how about debugging, one for output, one for code?
Or just to read the specs of your new product in one window while designing the interface or GUI in the other.
There are times when there's no need for a second monitor. But there's also a lot of times when two monitors simply help a lot. Plus, considering their cost, it will have paid for itself when it saved you about 5 hours of work. It simply is a no-brainer to have one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know this is may be kind of a weird concept, but not all of us have all of the nuances and documentation of the languages in which we work memorized. When I'm developing anything, I always have at least one window open with my IDE/editor, at least one window open (many times multiple windows open) with documentation--a window to which I refer to with such frequency that it would seriously hamper my efforts to have to click or alt-tab around to find it, at least one browser window open with Google and/or its search results, and most of the time, a window open with the project on which I'm working, and sometimes a debugging window as well.
The more code I can see at one time, the more productive I am, period. The more documentation I can see, the more productive I am, period. As for the project, it depends.
So yeah, I do think it's needed. Without dual monitors, every time I alt-tab, it costs around five seconds or so of down time while I try to get my bearings. It may not sound like much, but it happens literally hundreds of times during a coding session.
My personal thoughts is yes two monitors are necessary. It is very useful to have log windows open on one monitors and code on another. It is just like the real world the larger desk the more you spread things, and in my world it is easier to organize my work flow with things spread out where i can see them.
Any technology is indistinguishable from magic for someone insufficiently advanced.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, I put them top to bottom. That way, they both have the whole screen width to play with, no horizontal scrolling needed. It helps if you use a tiling window manager as that takes care of the tedious window positioning for you - I just press Alt-Spacebar to switch between top-bottom, left-right, left-stacked right, fullscreen and sometimes other layouts in Xmonad (on *nix, obviously).
--frank[at]unternet.org
Do I get triple points for reading it in my third vertical monitor?
So, apparently, says the research to come out of Microsoft's User Interface group. Quoting:
They've also found that additional monitors greatly help women in computing. See same article.
My own experience with this is that I perform better when I can get more pixels in my field of view, regardless of screen size, as long as I can read what's going on. An additional monitor improves both constraints. In contrast, when I have to work with a laptop and an 800x600 display, it's like sipping information through a straw. This is regardless of other factors like network bandwidth. Your mileage may vary.
Finding God in a Dog
Well.. Like so many people these days... rather than do a wee bit of research you resort to the internet without looking into it yourself... Some situations are a bit different but this one is just too simple. Ask him and observe how he utilizes the second monitor.. Is he using it to be effective? can you justify the cost for the man hours that it will save.. (Which is highly likely the ROI will be rather low unless you are really under paying him at which point you should fire all of your developers and get better ones that work for a good wage and do good work rather than crappy work for crappy pay)
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
I love having two monitors. I can see more stuff at the same time. Netbeans lets me place the output window on the second screen, so I can constantly watch output during builds and runs.
I can have a browser or text editor window open on one screen while writing stuff on the other. It saves me from flipping back and forth between windows.
I also have openSuse with multiple virtual desktops, and am constantly flipping back and forth between the browser desktop and the compiler/source control desktop, for example. It would be nice to always have a browser screen; I'm wondering if I should get a third monitor just for the browser. I think Suse can handle it, not sure.
Basically it was a dumb question to begin with. People who find they're more productive with two screens (or three, or four) should get one. They're not that expensive. I just got a decent 23" flat screen for home for about $150, and I've seen even lower prices since then.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Well obviously this is just going to show a rift between designers and programmers. So do "developers" need a second monitor? Probably not. Maybe for VM or side-by-side spot-checking.
But if you're a designer, you can really benefit from the real estate... base design on one side, corresponding elements on the other. Or particularly in the case of web designers, code on one side, product on the other. That way you don't have to go back-and-forth for previewing, or heaven forbid, the half-and-half Dreamweaver approach.
It's always confirmation bias!
If you're unable to splurge 130$ on a second monitor, the company is in trouble.
Another way to phrase this question is "Do you *really* need all those pixels to do your job?"
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
i can code without my glasses, too,
but nobody would suggest they're not necessary.
Before I stopped for some slashdot I had a bunch of windows open for development:
- NuSphere PhpED
- Firefox with phpMyAdmin open (and HeidiSQL behind it)
- Putty on the Asterisk server I'm testing the app on
- The web gui for my app
It's really nice seeing the result of my code on the server in real-time. Since both the GUI and Asterisk interact with MySQL directly it's great being able to refresh phpMyAdmin while I run through the motions of testing, and doubly-so to manipulate SQL statements then paste them into PhpED.
Do I need all those open at the same time? No. As much as having a rear-view and side mirrors on your car can be replaced by constant shoulder checking. It's a hassle with just one monitor, and with the extra screen space I'm able to save excessive alt-tabbing.
-Matt
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Is the amount of productivity increase you get for investing in a second $130 display for me worth worth it. I don't have hard numbers but I can't image its not the case. There are periods of boom and bust around here when it comes to work load. Right now its bust but next week after some other major projects on other teams complete it will be boom again. The schedules desired won't leave me much slacktime to spend on Slashdot.
Being able to have documentation on one display be it technical docs on api's or requirements documentation and code on the other does let me work faster. Its way faster to turn my head at look the move windows around. Its nice to be able to mentally step thur code I have just written with requirements in view.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The answer isn't universal -- it depends on what your development target is and how your tools work.
Here's a specific example. Know when having two monitors was awesome for developers? Back in the days when one of those monitors was attached to a VGA card, another to a MDA card, and you were debugging full-screen graphical apps under MS-DOS. You could run the full app on the VGA screen, but run the IDE and debugger on the monochrome screen on the same system at the same time. There was no way to do anything comparable with just one monitor.
But if you're programming for the web? Or for an Arduino? Or for an Android phone, testing/debugging real hardware? Some individual work habits may make some developers more productive with more screen real-estate, but not due to anything inherent in what they're doing.
If you've never worked with dual displays, well, you can't miss what you never had.
But once you've had it, and gotten used to having it, it can be hard to get used to not having it.
I'm not one to use full-screen windows, but if I'm working on, for example, a script to process data from a file, I'd like to have the script (obviously), a sample data file, probably Google, and the requirements doc all open at the same time. To have all those windows visible together is just a plus.
That said, if there was really wailing and gnashing of teeth, then the dev was being a prissy little diva.
I left coding for the more profitable managing job I'm doing now (I'm far less productive but get more money for it, go figure). And I still wouldn't want to part with my second monitor. There are times when I wish for a third.
It's simply very convenient to read the audit rules on one screen while writing your audit report on the other one. I would like a third for mail and some audit tools.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I examined this at my company, which is a large media sports site, at the requests of the director of applications development. The developer's productivity increased 20%. It increased their response time to e-mail and improved time tracking as well since it was easier to have those applications open while not taking away from their IDE space. In our case it saved the e-equivalent of a whole position or $100,000 as year.
I use my second monitor for a host of things like: 1) Checking the output against the code when working on a web page 2) Looking up answers to a programming questions on the web. It's often helpful to see my code vs the posted code. 3) Stepping through a debugger with the application opened 4) Watching a log file while running an application 5) A VM, SSH or RDP session 6) Skype, Email or other communication window opened 7) Etc, etc, etc None of these "require" a second monitor (I could keep switching windows), but having the second monitor increases my productivity by at least 30%. (Technically, I actually have two machines, each with 2 monitors, with a shared keyboard and mouse with Synergy (http://synergy-foss.org), which gives me the ability to be do some heavy crunching on one machine while research (aka slashdot) on the other)
Depends on the task that I am doing. If I am doing straight coding one monitor works fine as I can easily fit a couple of buffers on one window. But if I am doing something like html work I would like a second monitor for a web browser. Right now my 2nd monitor usually just houses my email, instant messages and maybe a text file with some notes.
Emacs window with several panes to view code. 4-5 terminals for compilation, greps, test runs, and other such things. That pretty much takes up a full 1600x1200 screen. If I need to view a lengthy debug log, maybe grep'ed subsets of said log that I want to cross-reference with other logs, that is really handy to have up on a second screen so I can see both that and the code and the execution output. And when I'm viewing waveforms, or using other graphical debug tools, then that's a shoe-in for needing a second screen. Ideally that could be a third screen, with debug output on the second, and code + terminals on the 1st.
I can never have enough screen real-estate, and it has nothing to do with dumb applications wasting it.
The enemies of Democracy are
While I'm certain you're the most productive and intelligent genius to ever walk the earth, there are actually 7 billion other people and we don't all work like you, so maybe denigrating our tools and workflows because they aren't what you prefer is... you know... arrogant and dickish?
Its true.... a monitor is maybe an extra under $200 for a rather nice one. Hell I paid $160 retail and I love my new screen.
Given what that is as a fraction of even an entry level developer salary, the fact that its equipment that will get depreciated (can't forget that), lasts at least 5 if not 10 years or more (on average and honestly I doubt we are going to see so much improvement in size/resolution since we have hit the point of diminishing returns for most applications) etc.... lets just say, I think if the company can't justify spending that, even if it is just to keep a developer happy, then it speaks very poorly of the company.
If $150 and a bit extra electricity is such a big problem, the company finances are fucked and you should worry. If its not that, then management is overly into micromanagement and is making very short sighted decisions based on their view of needs rather than focusing on keeping everything running smoothly and their employees content. Either way, i would say that, if they don't listen to you and fix this,.... its time to put resumes out before they tank or make life miserable.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Seriously, between salary, benefits, the cost of a computer and the office space that a cube takes up, a developer is a very valuable resource. If throwing a couple of hundred dollars worth of monitor at him is going to make him happy (who cares if it actually makes him more productive) then its money well spent.
Niggling over a couple of hundred bucks will end with your developer leaving for a more profitable company and leave you stuck looking for someone to replace them, how about that for the value of a second monitor.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I've been a programmer for 12 years. I've never even found a use for multiple desktops except for one job I had developing on Red Hat. It was nice to have a desktop devoted to 4 x terminals with various things in them.
I can see a network admin getting a lot of use out of multiple desktops, which you can get even for windows.
Another monitor is just a convenience for having to click another desktop.
As a UNIX admin who does light shell, perl, and python coding a dual monitor setup really makes life a lot easier and allows me to be more productive. There is time and concentration lost when switching and minimizing windows. LCD monitors are not that expensive anymore that you cannot justify the purchase of a second one.
Speak for yourself. I won't be happy until my workspace looks like the NORAD control center in Wargames.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Knowledge workers are more productive with each additional monitor up to four monitors. After that additional gains in productivity trail off.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/technology/personaltech/15basics.html
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/06/multiple-monitors-and-productivity.html
It's useful to add monitors to reduce frequent flipping back and forth between apps. When my developers are working on a task, it usually involves jumping between multiple activities, like coding (VS2010 and/or eclipse and/or another IDE), DBA'ing (SQL Management studio), debugging (digging through log files or web pages or custom diagnostic tools), and remotely connecting to servers (RDP or logmein). Plus they've got email, skype, PDFs, web searches, and online help going on too.
I started them out with two monitors apiece, but didn't have any qualms about adding a third when they asked for it. I'm positive that the increased productivity / decreased bitching recovered the $200 cost within the first month.
Of course, there's diminishing returns. I'd have a hard time believing that they'll benefit from a fourth monitor.
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Does management know better than the developers whats best for the developers?
You can give developers slow, old computers with a single monitor, but they won't be nearly as productive. I actively develop in about 10 languages (computer, not human). Have you ever tried to keep straight all the different ways that an if statement can be coded? I look all that stuff up and/or test things on my secondary and tertiary monitors (the third monitor is hooked up to a second computer) and do my coding, compiling, scripting, administrating, email checking, etc on my primary monitor. I could do all that on a single monitor but then that's a lot of task window switching and when cutting and pasting example code, looking up the parameters of a function, etc. that will kill my productivity by 25% minimum. So a couple hundred bucks for a second monitor is paid for in a couple of days. Really, that's a no brainer. BTW, I'm writing this email on the third monitor/second computer, +50 Geek.
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A single monitor is survivable, but would you mind if we cut off your left foot?
I use my laptop a lot for developing, and I don't generally use it with a second monitor, but the screen real-estate is a problem. I've used dual monitor setups before and they can be superior setups in many environments.
Add in the fact it's downright rude to take equipment from an employees work area without consultation.
Vertical space is at a premium. Does it really not bother you to lose half of it by tiling vertically?
You know that "coders" are generally working and editing in one window while viewing the finished product in another right? The fact that our tools are text based doesn't change the work flow that much.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I can't imagine the limitations on 2 or 3 monitors :)
I'm on 4!
And not 4 little ones, they all do 1920*1200 or more. I'm currently thinking about a new job and one of the things that gives me the most anxiety is not having the monitors!!!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Coders? Perhaps not. It is however a must for any kind of graphic design, video editing, 3D modeling, etc. Having your full, finished product up on one monitor while you edit and tool around on the other makes for a more productive experience.
The GUI of a program requires coding too...
Although a second monitor for coding would be most useful for debugging (see what code is executing and what the GUI is currently doing at the same time)
Why do I feel ashamed for actually raising my hand here. Well, probably because my browser is usually on the second screen, with my IDE and other editing apps are on the larger primary. I love the added real estate afforded to me by having two screens.
Do you only have one piece of paper on your desk? Actually do you have a desk that is slightly larger than just your monitor? I mean 1 piece of paper is ALL anyone should need to look at at one time right?
This question is dumb! You have multiple monitors because you need to see more things that can fit on one screen at one time. I am not going to divide up my monitoring space between windows until they are the size of post-it notes. I am scanning hundreds of lines of code sometimes, and a full monitor to see that gives me the ability 120~ lines. Now I have to see the result of my coding. I have that on another monitor, and I only have to look back and forth between my code and the results being displayed. I guess I could toggle back and forth between windows, but it is much faster and easier if I can just look at another screen. Is the cost of a new monitor really that big a deal?
Why not confiscate all the extra pens and pencils and make sure everyone has just 1 from now on? I am sure the $20 that you save over the course of the year should cover all the BS from that situation too. Perhaps we can give you the Dilbert PHB award that you are looking for.
Really to make a worker more efficient at their job you wouldn't break down and purchase a second monitor.
Glad I don't work there - My job all I needed to say is hey I need 4 gigs of memory and duel monitors and the next day they were on my desk
No questions asked
Seriously take a look at what they are asking for, then really place it into perspective of your overall IT budget.
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
Meh, I still think that Swordfish guy has you covered.
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The problem with THAT many large screens is that the boss can easily tell when you accidentally *ehrm* hit a porn site when searching the man pages...or other "technical" articles.
Sure, it depends on your coding environment and a bunch of other things. But in order to do my work effectively, I not only have to have multiple windows open, but also to switch among them very frequently.
When I am not at home, and I have to code on just my laptop monitor? Sure, I can do it. But it is frustratingly slower to do. There really is no doubt about that.
Do I need a second monitor? No. But it far more than pays for itself through greater productivity.
Developers don't need two monitors, they don't even need a proper monitor: a 7'' display at 640x400 is enough ...
as long as their man-hour costs are low enough that their reduced productivity is worth less than the cost of a monitor
Now, it's easy enough to justify the cost of a single monitor instead of the above mentioned 7'' display since the productivity difference is huge.
However, the productivity difference between one and two monitors depends a lot on the work the Developer does so it might not be worth it for a lowly paid dev doing, say, shell script development on Unix while it would likely be worth it for a Senior Developer doing GUI development.
Virtual desktops are great, but I find that, at least on the mac, putting your debugger in one space and running your app in another doesn't really work. Still, I love having virtual desktops set asside for SVN or for other tools that I am not using constantly.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
You could say the same thing for programmers/developers as well. One one monitor, you have the code you're working on, and maybe a second window with another code file if you enforce column limits on your code. On another monitor, you have your compiler output, and a debug terminal. On a third, you have header files for use with the code you're actively working on documentation, etc... The more pertinent information you can display on screen at once, and simply move your head instead of having to tab around, the more efficiently you can program.
It comes right back to whether a large desk is more productive than a small cramped desk for any task. If you're juggling books and notes in your lap, or have stacks piled up, you're suffering.
I run the application in one window and my debugger in the other. In general, I find this on its own much easier. I worked for years with one and only went to two monitors by accident, but it took me less than a day to get used to it and wonder why I hadn't been doing it eons earlier. Documentation side-by-side with code (or a browser if you're searching for answers online) is just less aggravating. Maybe if you've never had it, but once you have...hard as hell to go back!
That said, there are plenty of situations when its simply a must. If you're doing any kind of GUI work, it can be absolutely invaluable. Focus bugs, redraw issues -- these are all problems that I've had other developers here push over to me because they simply can't debug them properly without a second monitor. That extra work was itself a problem until every developer in our office got themselves a second monitor too, but now everyone is happy.
Seriously, if they tried to take my second monitor away I'd consider that grounds for quitting. That'd be like telling me I had to develop with one hand tied behind my back. Maybe some development environments wouldn't benefit the same way, but none that I've ever worked with.
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You use an LCD Screen! Poofta!
I develop HTML5 based robotic heart surgery machines running on top of jQuery beneath AJAX served by node.js off of an Amazon mounted Rackspace Cloud written in Clojure, and I've had it with LCD Screens, CRTs, and so-called editors.
On even days I punch my code into an ASR-33, and on odd days, I just toggle the code directly into the main memory. And on transcendental days, I use very fine magnets and rearrange the domains on the hard drive.
So don't you get all hoity toity to me about your ability to code with only one screen! You're a bloody wanker is what you are!
Software (or anything else) that you create on a computer with two monitors can still be used by people with only one.
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I agree, it's silly to assume you're more productive with more than one screen. That's why my physical horizontal desktop is 1 foot square, because there's no need ever to have more than one piece of paper visible at a time on a desktop. Also, when I eat rice, I only put one grain of rice on my plate at a time. That way I never overeat. Although getting enough calories each meal is little difficult.
To estimate the objective answer to the question, do the math.
What is the value of a software engineer per year?
How many years does a monitor last?
How much does a monitor cost?
What is the rough ratio between screen real estate and productivity for a software engineer?
The last one is the tough one, but far from impossible. Assume that above 21", I get something between 2% and 20% of the increased size as increased productivity. So if I go from 21" to 42" -- a 100% increase in size -- I get 2% to 20% increased productivity. A wide range, but it almost certainly covers a conservative estimate of reality.
So, now plug in the other numbers using the example case of going from 1 x 21" to 2 x 21":
V = value of software engineer per year = $100k (or whatever)
L = lifespan of monitor, in years = 3
Mc = cost of monitor = $500 (for a good one)
Ec = cost of electricity, per year = $80
P = increase in productivity = 2% to 20%.
V * P = value added by buying the monitor, per year
Ec + Mc / L = cost of buying the monitor, per year
V * P = (2% to 20%) * $100k = $2k to $20k
Ec + Mc / L = $80 + $500 / 3 = $246
Value of buying the monitor is $2k to $20k per year.
Cost of buying the monitor is $246 per year.
It is extreme fiscal irresponsibility to not buy the monitor -- though a new factor enters the equation when you reach the point of having to add office-space rental consideration (ie: so many monitors that you need a bigger space). There are also decreasing returns from increasing screen real-estate which are not considered in this small example but would be easy to incorporate.
The same is probably also true of the accounting department, since accountants make most of their contribution through a computer screen.
The same is probably also true of the CEO, since his value per year to the company is much higher.
This is probably less true, for example, of point-of-sale personnel, who make most of their contribution through human interaction, not through a monitor.
This is probably less true of low level functionaries, who have a lower annual value to the corporation.
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I'm not really impressed by using 2 different monitors, that is what virtual desktops are for.
However I do have 2 large monitors, large resolution, apps maximised and a hotkey to move windows from one to the other.
But the monitors are differently orientated
I work on one monitor, but when I need to read a PDF it is easier to read it on the other monitor.
New things are always on the horizon
I bet your 32 inch TV only has about 1920x1080 pixels of screen real estate.
2 monitors smaller monitors could fit much more information into the same amount of physical space.
So do "developers" need a second monitor? Probably not.
No, probably not... unless they run a debugger on their code, or read documentation, or want to compare two different source files to one another, etc.
Look, monitors cost ~$200 once. Programmers cost ~$80,000/year. Just buy the second monitor.
It really does help a lot. Frankly, the only reason I go to the office sometimes is for the double monitor setup, as I only have one at home. Otherwise I would work remotely. We have 3:2 aspect double monitors for our crew and lately new hires have been wailing about the size, resolution, and ratio. According to them we are in the dark ages and everybody works on double or triple huge widescreen monitors now. I'm don't doubt that these are even better, but these requests have earned a good spot in the middle of the IT priority list and budget. They'll upgrade us when some get some bigger fish fried.
I've been playing with dual and big monitors lately, and my thinking on this subject is: Do developers need dual monitors? No. Is there any reason not to provide developers dual monitors? No. Modern IDEs use an amazing amount of real-estate. Having more screen real-estate can help prevent you from having to "change focus" to another virtual workspace, instead of completely switching context you can just flick your eyes to the IRC client, for example. But on the other hand, a small monitor doesn't have space for the other junk, so it can help me focus on a single task, if I resist the urge to check e-mail, the web, IRC (used primarily for company communications, but still often a distraction). But having lots of screen real-estate can make these interruptions much less intrusive. After having tried it, I'd rather have one large monitor than several smaller ones. But, it's pretty cool to have multiple large monitors. :-)
I did, but personally, I use synergy2 + 1 monitor for linux (main machine, largest monitor), 1 monitor for windows, and one monitor for OSX.
I just happened to open this on the windows machine since I already had firefox open for browser testing.
It depends on what you are doing, but if you have to compare different things and work with a lot of open windows absolutely multiple windows are a must. This actually seems to be more common now with non-technical folks. Where I work almost everyone has two LCDs.
Python
how many points if I'm running this on my 4th?
1st - code view, full screen.
2nd pallets/toolbars etc (either in dreamweaver or eclipse)
3rd the output, results, test, whatever you want to call it.
4th this one switches a bit. Sometimes the database manager, or a putty to the server. Even mail or IM distractions...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
It costs so little and can really boost productivity for development. Then again it depends on the person. Once I went to dual screens my productivity increased and I can't really deal with single-screen for most tasks anymore. The bigger question to my mind - if your company doesn't value a simple $100-200 investment in developer satisfaction and productivity, how do you expect to retain your developers or maintain a productive team?
Remember when you finally upgraded your beater car and got that new car, and sat there in amazement, wondering how the hell you ever drove long distances without cruise control? Yeah, that's kind of how it is when your monitor count rises above one.
When you're paying a developer the kind of money they command in the industry, why in the hell do companies feel like they need to question another $300 - $500 in hardware? Seriously. I'm not saying bow down and treat them like prima donnas, but damn, they're asking for something to be more productive, not a damn PS3 in the break room. Comparing code, multiple SSH sessions, VM/RDP sessions, hell even cut and paste between two windows is easier than alt-tabbing your way through life with limited real estate.
And yes, I run three monitors. Ran that way for years now. I find it to be the most useful number above one. And much like cruise control, you sure as hell get used to relying on it.
I have done dual monitor setups before. I liked it, but did not find it something I would consider necessary
Part of the problem is that old versions of Windows (i.e. pre-7) have been atrocious at handling multiple windows in general. OS X makes this much easier with its expose' feature and then the standard virtual desktop feature that pretty much every operating system supports. Another nice feature IMO would be adding a hot key to switch the current window to an alternate transparency level. e.g. Have a configurable secondary transparency setting like 15% and a hot key would bring the window in focus to that transparency level.
As far as side by side comparisons, most things that benefit heavily from that include a dual pane view. e.g. File Merge on the mac.
So, I do not really see why it would be a necessity for anyone to have a second monitor. I would think a large wide screen monitor + proper software would be fine.
Of course it could be that two smaller monitors are cheaper than a single large one. I do not really know offhand. Also, I do not see why someone would make such a fuss over this as to take the monitor from an employee. That is some pretty extreme cost cutting IMO.
I thought a second monitor was unnecessary until I tried one. Now it's indispensable for me. There seems to be a tipping point in time when everyone started getting a second monitor. It may be the case like so often happens with constrained company budgets today that the guy should just go out and spring for purchasing his own second monitor to use at work. He says it's only $150. If he leaves the company, he should be able to take it with him.
Next question please.
Not only developers, but many others as well. Many people who work with scanned documents are better of with a second monitor as well. Or in general if you are working on one thing while looking at something else. Most of the time it won't fit on a single screen, unless it is a HUGE screen.
Screen real estate is important for many people, not just IT people. As always it will depend from job to job and person to person.
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Doesn't matter how many of those you have, you never have one when you actually need it (hint, its in your back pocket, but it will take 2 hours for you to look there).
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
http://xkcd.com/732/
A coder that's doing a lame HTML table based page? No. An actual programmer that is running memory management and performance monitoring tools and debugging real time, while monitoring logs, does need the dual monitors, I'd even argue triple monitors.
Specially when I have the debugger with several watches; even more useful when debug JS code with FireBug or Chrome Developer Tools... I have two 25'' displays and I want another :D
I tried with one big monitor with ultra high resolution, but personally I prefer two high resolution displays (1950x1080).
So, the answer is absolutely yes
There has been some research on this topic and the limited research suggests a 30% or more improvement in productivity with a second monitor. This is especially true with more experienced developers.
http://workawesome.com/productivity/dual-monitor-setup/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/enhance-productivity-multiple-monitors/
There are a lot of resources for this and they often point to different studies. So, if you aren't seeing productivity gains, you may be working very close to the metal where having specifications in front of you doesn't matter, or you may be very junior.
You just nailed exactly what I was thinking. Someone too cheap to pony up 150 bucks for my mental comfort doesn't deserve my attention to begin with. Something stupid like that just shows you how much they value (or don't value) your time.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
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In my experience, people get personally hurt when they are told that they don't need equipment as good as another department. It's one thing not to hand it out in the first place, but I can never imagine an employer taking away part of someone's working environment and equipment. It's a slap in the face. It's also disruptive to productivity-- Once someone is used to their setup, changing it at all can waste their time, especially taking away equipment they are used to as part of their daily process.
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Any decent IDE is likely to be better with multiple monitors, not just interface design. Even working in SQL is better when expanding your IDE across multiple monitors. I would argue that spanning an IDE across multiple monitors is a much larger boost to productivity than spanning a spreadsheet across multiple monitors. And I'd also argue that it is pretty damn cheap to buy and run a monitor, so if your employees can use one, give it to them.
I give all of my IT staff multiple monitors, even the help desk. Come on people, you spend the better part of 100k every year even for cheap IT staff. Why would you chintz out on a lousy couple hundred (tops) for a second monitor? That's just crappy management practice.
...which can be found at http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Two%20Monitors
ceci n'est pas un sig
In fact 3 monitors are probably ideal. Development, as a mental process, involves a lot of switching between medium-term and short term views. It also often takes context switching. I prefer the development screen in front of me, the api descriptions on one screen and the details pertaining to the context of the project on the left. I like having 3 screens when I write code for the same reason that I like to do math on the dinner table. Bringing multiple contexts together takes a lot of space.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's not just IDEs that assume they have the entire screen to themselves.
It seems like a lot of applications are guilty of this. Some of these applications might be required by the person's job, whether they like it or not. Also, like you mentioned, it also seems like a lot of web sites expect you to view them with your browser at full screen and not everyone has a solution for that.
Personally, I usually my laptop's monitor and an additional monitor at the same time. I usually run X Windows apps in one and email/sametime/browser in the other.
If I had a really nice, decent size monitor, I wouldn't have to do that. What happened to the old days when UNIX admins had 21" monitors?
Look, monitors cost ~$200 once. Programmers cost ~$80,000/year. Just buy the second monitor.
Amen.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
I write complex molecular dynamics code all day, runs on a 1000 node cluster and dynamically load balances across all of them.
I do it all on a 15" MacBookPro with 3-4 or so terminals open (in tabs), with an instance of Emacs holding about 50 buffers. Yup, all I need is a few terminals. On top of this, I usually have a local instance of Emacs with several latex files open. 15" is just fine.
Think about it, your brain can hold 5-6 concurrent thoughts, why do you need more monitors than your brain can keep track of?
I have 16 virtual desktops and two monitors. If the two monitors even make me .5% more productive, the 2nd pays for itself.
The virtual desktops are useful for keeping long-term projects exactly where I left them and ease time-slicing between projects.
You might think I have 72M pixels to use.
Best,
--PM
I would be more offended that the monitor was simply taken away, with no notice, no discussion, no attempt to pry it away by reason first.
That just smacks of "we don't care about you, chump".
If the company is so tight fisted that they can't splurge $150-$180 for another monitor, then it's time to move to another company.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Does the accountant absolutely need the monitor to process the paycheck of the developer? Then no.
If you are writing code the way the Good Lord intended, i.e. using a sensible window manager like Window Maker to multiplex xterms, with your source code no wider that 80 columns, you will know that you only need one monitor.
If you have one of these newfangled LCD screens with 1920 pixels across, you can quite comfortably get 3 xterms side by side and still have room to click on the root window to get the menu.
But you don't need the menu since you can just have an extra xterm open.
You can use the multiple virtual desktop feature to group windows by task.
I usually have one desktop for web and email and many for coding. Each coding desktop has 8 or 9 xterms open.
These fancy monitors are really cheap too now.
Crikey, in my day I had to code on a 1k ZX81 with lo-res graphics, uppercase characters only in black and white on a fuzzy analogue TV set, interlaced at 32x22...
When my 19 inch diamondtron CRT eventually dies, I'll buy and LCD monitor.
Now get of my lawn!
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Yep
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No. I likewise don't need a broad band connection, a decently fast computer... hell, I might be able to manage with some paper, a pencil and candle light just so long as I can get that code into the computer at the end. However, would that hurt my coding speed, oh yeah. A second monitor is like any tool for a job, you can probably get by without it, but like trying to clean your house with a toothbrush, it won't be nearly as cost effective.
I wouldnt know what to do without my second screen. even on my laptop, its plugged into the 52 inch tv half the time im coding..... nothing else will do.
[A] developer arrived at work to realize his second monitor had been taken (given to the accounting dept., to add insult to injury).
So which is it? Is your company so disorganized that it couldn't order a monitor in time for your new accountant or so broke that it couldn't afford another? Either way, if I were a developer there, I'd start looking elsewhere.
That is all.
2. Run an important, CPU time consuming but program with full visibility, while I work on another, separate, less important project until it finishes doing whatever it is doing. I don't have keep checking to see if it is done.
3. See, read (and maybe Answer) the bosses email about while at the same time working on my major project.
4. View the web site I am working on using both firefox and explorer simultaneously.
Basically, it is a multi-tasking tool. If you are busy, you need it. If not, you use it to work while posting to slashdot.
The question becomes, do you want your developers to mult-task? Every place I have ever worked say YES.
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I can't believe a decent developer comes cheaper than $100K/year in the US, counting everything. A decent, perfectly usable, monitor will run something under $200.
That means that, if the corporate budget was sane, providing the extra monitor would be worth it if it improved productivity by 0.2%. If taking the monitor away cut the developer's productivity by one half of one percent, it's costing the company more than it's worth within five months. If the developer's claim of reduced productivity is even slightly true, that's a real false economy.
The morale effects alone will probably drive down productivity by full percents. When the developer thinks the company isn't willing to spend $200 to keep him working as accustomed, the developer is likely to get a feeling that the company doesn't care how productive he or she is, and will lose motivation and an edge on hard problems. When management takes the attitude that the developer is whiny because he or she is trying to hang on to his or her tools, bad things are going to happen.
With the time needed to adjust workflow and habits to the reduced screen estate, as well as some time complaining and trying to make a business case, it's likely the developer will lose four hours very fast, and there's the money saved from not just going out and buying a monitor for Accounting.
People may not want to work for a company that does things like that. Does management have any sort of handle on how much productivity staff turnover costs them? And, of course, if the developer has any substance to the claim of reduced productivity, even in the sligh
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Two 1920x1200 monitors to program with (ubuntu with a window manager that gives me many virtual desktops to organize different projects.) The standard layout is 8x2 rxvts, 7 to edit (vim) and 1 to make in.
Two 2048x1152 monitors for Windows for personal productivity tools as well as lab test bench tools (which unfortunately only seem to come well supported in Windows.)
One 1920x1080 monitor plugged into an Aten 1728 eight way switch for the various systems used for testing the hardware and software. If I could find a KVM that supported two keyboards and two monitors I would immediately add another 1920x1080 screen here as well. I do networking software and have to work with two of the eight systems at a time.
Its not unusual to be working with four to five source code files on the Linux system, checking results from an analyzer and displaying documentation PDF's on Windows and watching logs on one of the test systems. I presume I could do all of this funneled through one or two monitors but it would be painful at best.
The only other thing missing from this setup is a usable network clipboard. It would be nice to be able to cut and paste across all of the Linux development systems, Windows productivity, some VMWare systems and the systems under test.
I've been programming with multiple screens since the dark ages (three 80x24 terminals @ 19200 baud, back in about 1985.) and have found that it improves my productivity.
Being an admin, multiple screens can help out a great deal. Especially if I'm on with tech support for some company, have a WebEx open and I don't need them seeing other stuff. I can share per screen and if I need them to see something, I move it from one screen to the other instead of working with sharing tools that don't always work out. It also comes in handy when I need to, say, RDP to a server and I have to follow a procedure to configure something. I can have a text file open on the screen next to the RDP session instead of jumping in and out of the RDP window or having to waste a tree and print out the procedure..
As far as developers though, the only ones I have ever seen use multiple monitors were web and/or application developers. One screen is the development window, the other screen is a remote desktop or VM for testing. I knew one guy who had 3 screens but I think it was more of an ego boost than anything. He only ever had his WoW guild page up and was F5'ing the forum and chat room instead of working on his other two monitors.
Heh, if only. Jobsites eat your most commonly-used tools.
Only an idiot thinks that their job is somehow the only one that matters
Or they're graphics artists
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Left monitor = documentation/help/email/IM/Shells
Center monitor = Development environment (IDE)
Right monitor = Application deployed/test environment
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
I use a combination of EMACS and C which doesn't require the use of a monitor. Just a few blinking LED's and a clicking keyboard is all I need.
I suppose not, as most IDEs have good keyboard shortcuts, and people should learn to use them. Certainly they can do their jobs without second monitor as well.
However having both tends to increase productivity in the modern age.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
The best argument for a second monitor is that developers aren't constantly productive. Tests take time to run, code takes time to compile. If I'm using the same monitor to compile as to read email (or /.) for example, how long will it take me notice the compile/test has completed? It's close to instantaneous if the compile is running on a different screen. If it saves me 30 seconds a compile that's a few minutes a day every day. So having the second monitor pays it self off quickly without any productivity gains based on real estate. Now, personally, I find that there are real gains as I alternate between programming on my single monitor with multiple workspaces at home and my dual screen setup at work. But either way the extra monitor adds value.
-- Adam McCormick
I have three windows of source code open side by side and I rarely have to horizontally scroll. It's only when people have code that's wide than 80 columns.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Today's monitors are all about HD TV.
The sad truth is that most people at work need to do work, not watch videos. However, their screens have 768 pixels from top to bottom. That is less than an iPhone!
Personally, I think anything less than 1200 pixels from top to bottom is too not enough. I don't what to only see 10 lines of code at a time. However, it is almost impossible to find a monitor at 1600 x 1200 these days. Finding something at 1920 x 1080 is easy. However, this is much wider than I need and not tall enough.
The sad thing is look at most web pages, word docs, PDF's etc. on a wide screen monitor. There are huge areas with no text or anything useful running down the side. These items are all tall and narrow, but people are building screens to be wide and not tall.
It just depends on if they are effectively using it or it's just sitting there. Two is a minimum for me. I stipulate in my contract my exact system requirements and hardware update schedule. Everyone loves my hand me downs. If they balk without batting an eye I tell them I will provide my own hardware and my salary gets padded but it remains my own property and isn't subject to their jurisdiction so I can bring in stuff and take it away as I feel fit (you don't abuse the privilege.) I'm not a rookie, I know what it takes for me to be productive and I will name name brand stuff (such as a Thinkpad for a laptop, triple or quadruple the price of a cheapie) when I feel justified. If a company's steeling a second generic monitor from a developer and your wondering if he's just being whinny then I will definitely never work for you. Just the time it takes to discuss it pays for an el cheapo LCD.
On the specific subject, just being able to bring up a browser on another monitor and type an exact error message when you can't copy and paste; I use it a dozen times a day at minimum and it saves 2 minutes each time, so that's 24 minutes out of a work day. To look at code on one screen and the results on another... priceless. To look at your code and have code manuals on another, priceless again.
At $200-$300...who cares if it's effective. Buy it for the guy. And never never take it away with out permission.
If I tell you I'm more productive with coffee. Buy me coffee. If it's coke, buy me coke.
Why to companies piss off their employees for pocket change?
BTW...there are numerous studies that show productivity goes up with a second monitor. If I had a second monitor, I would have found references for you.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I've never really understood why people will piss and moan for days about how they need this or that $100 thing to make them much more productive, rather than clicking on a button on Amazon and having it show up at your desk a couple of days later.
If your life is really miserable using one monitor, isn't it worth $130 to get a second one? If you feel you could be 20% more productive with two monitors, wouldn't that look good at next review time?
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I find the additional monitor so useful that I will bring my own if it isn't provided.
Ten points if you read this post on your second monitor like I did!
Posting this from my second 24" display right now! =P I do molecular modeling and virtual simulations of proteins & macromolecules, so the added visualization space is a huge plus. It's especially nice to be able to view the entire protein one screen, and all of your data and/or literature on the other. It's also nice when running VM or connecting to the Windows Citrix Server on one screen and doing real work in Linux on the other -- it's almost like having two computers.
At home, I run a 22" monitor via DVI and a 40" television primarily used as a monitor connected via HDMI. While it would be nice to run two 40" at home, that could understandably be a tad overkill,. . .
I believe having multiple monitors, especially for software development, is very helpful. Not only can it aid debugging graphic applications (CAD/CAM, etc...), but it also helps when using a new API. I will have the documentation on one monitor and the IDE on another. I once had a manager who believed that the developers should have the oldest and slowest computers. He thought that having slow hardware would force the developers to write faster code. It only served to frustrate us and we ended up wasting huge amounts of time during build cycles. While, when I was writing code, I always WANTED the fastest hardware, I do not believe it i necessary, but developers should get the necessary tools because, as previously stated by others here, developers are expensive and small up-front investments in processors, memory, monitors, etc... that make them more productive pay great dividends in delivery of new features and bug fixes.
after working for over 5 years at a help desk/ net work admin area I always thought those that had two was silly.. but now working as a Customer Service Admin with people working under me i need to manage, having two for the last 4 years has made it so that is all i want at home. Even when working on my "Laptop" (in quotes because it is a Qosmio 18.4'' beast that doesn't go well on your lap) I always look to the right to where my 2nd one at work would be whenever I open a new Browser. ;-)
Have two in this line of work helps a lot for programming docs as well. I can put the data i want to use on the left.. then on the 2nd monitor i can Rotate the desktop to view a Loan Document in full page view as i am programming in Java and such on that doc.
(also with it tilted, it is great to read Tech Websites like Slashdot)
He must use ed. Who cares about vertical space when you can only see one line at a time anyway?
I have one monitor on my laptop and at home. I've had two monitors at some jobs, and only one at others. I generally find two to be really annoying unless one has a clear purpose, like a VM or (as someone else mentioned) a remote desktop or VNC session. But those latter cases aren't so common.
I run a VM on my laptop, and I just use the host OS's X server. Then the guest's windows share space with all the other ones and it works just fine.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Want to get the cheapskates really wound up? Suggest multiple PCs. Maybe its my weird luck but both my current and former employer have provided multiple machines per desk.
Typically the "secondary PCs" are devoted to stuff like mail reading, manual reading, doc reading, or maybe instead a permanent connection to the airgapped production network, etc.
The sysadmin types love having multiple machines... SSH into a client here, a server here, and have that box watch the logs. Suddenly 15 minute troubleshooting clickfests because solved in seconds... Also fun to connect one machine / monitor / keyboard to each server in the cluster while working load balancing problems. One machine connects to one router, the other to another router, then you debug ospf...
If you don't use microsoft stuff, the cost of deploying yet another Debian box is negligible.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
What if I'm reading on my third monitor?
No joke. Would we be having this conversation if someone form accounting stole his chair?
Next week:
Do developers even need chairs?
THL phish sticks
80 columns, 25 lines and eventually 16 colors for syntax highlighting.
Actually, having a small desk is a great way to keep your desk clean. Generally speaking, what's on my desk is crap that's accumulated there over time. If you have room for a book to the left and the right of your keyboard, you probably have all the room you need. My desk is about 16"x20", and I'm quite happy with it, except that it could be a bit smaller. Of course, I have a rack to the left of my desk with my JTAG debug board and the system I'm debugging...
I feel strongly enough about it that I bought my own monitor and brought it in.
Think about the amount of his OWN time and political capital this developer wasted over a $125 monitor from Fry's.
When I started at my current company I brought in my own 17" monitor and 64k of ram. Right now I have my own 24" monitor (the 22" 2nd monitor is below the desk).
Having a second monitor with today's work environment is critical.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'd suggest asking your boss if he really needs an office. Think how much money would be saved by converting it to cubicles. What costs more, an office or a second monitor?
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I find using a second monitor for any of these things to be a huge distraction. It works much better if it all lives in the same area is my code windows.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Hardware is completely different. At $200 - $400, I have literally dozens of monitors to choose from so I can pick out exactly the one I want with precisely the features I want. I can even support a company I favor while ignoring those I do not. I have little to no such choice in the way of office suites, operating systems, or other proprietary software. Most of these things have one or two options, neither of which I may want, so my only other choice is free software (or nothing at all).
Do they need one? Probably not. People say they "need" a lot more things then they actually do need. I was developing just fine on my laptop today out of the office with only one monitor (and the small laptop one at that!). It clearly isn't required.
Is it nice to have? Absolutely! Does it help me get more done by letting me have more screen space? Yep! IMO the second one is a productivity booster, particularly in cases where you're trying to monitor the results of doing something and you need to use a program and see a profiler/tracer/performance counter/log/whatever result at the same time. Put one on each monitor and you're set.
But if it wasn't there I could still do my job, so I don't "need" it.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
This post sums up the entire argument pretty well. Allow me to translate:
"Anyone who isn't me? Perhaps not. I cannot picture how anyone who isn't me would need any luxury whatsoever, because it would not make me happier. Therefore, they are prima donnas, and should be fired for the sheer audacity. I, on the other hand, absolutely need a second monitor, and denying me one would be tantamount to cutting my pay in half and sticking me in the boiler room."
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Or particularly in the case of web designers, code on one side, product on the other.
This is where I find dual monitors most useful. Firefox with Firebug on one, and NP++ on the other. It saves a shit-ton of window flipping.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm not sure what habits are good or bad for web guys or software guys. I suppose there is likely some overlap.
I have two monitors.
Right now I'm auditing simulation tests for an SoC, we're updating an older design with current peripheral revisions, newer CPU core revision, DMA controller connections, memory configuration, etc.
I have a spec doc open, a test spreadsheet showing what tests came with the original design, and a shell with a dozen tabs showing the RTL netlist, individual test C code, chip configuration .h files and my audit result file, simulation GUI, test description GUI, and some other things. It's nice to have the C code on one screen while the test description GUI is on the other screen. Or the description GUI and the audit results each on a screen. Or the audit results and the test spreadsheet. Or the HDL code and the simulation waves. Or C code and simulation waves. I don't need individual screens for every window, but different combinations of do things work out well on two screens. I think that a single screen would be too confining. Lucky me I'm one of the last to get a second screen, so there's not really anyone to give one of mine to. :)
A better question is why the accountants thought it was a good idea to reallocate resources from one department's budget to another.
That kind of argument might make sense if your screen were the size of a postage stamp. Unfortunately, most monitors are at least 19" today. Plenty enough space for a full-course meal of data.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Of course they don't need one, but most of them will benefit highly from one. I generally have my code full screen on my main monitor, but my secondary monitor goes back and forth between my VCS, documentation, bug tracker, requirement sheet, and test results or trial runs of the program. Being able to have things like that open without losing sight of my code and being able to go back and forth between them effortlessly is tremendously helpful More rarely, it has older code on it as I copy and past from one project to another. Then being able to see the two projects side by side is of great benefit. So, I get a lot of productivity benefit from the second monitor, and I think 3 would be quite resonable.
When breakpointing or simply *looking* at your code overlaps the UI and triggers refresh events that derail the code path you're attempting to debug, you'll quickly be begging for that extra monitor ...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Accountants to serve a function within the company, and you can't run the company without all of the other jobs. That is absolutely true.
But when your company makes software (or any technology/engineering type product) ... occasionally, you can have accounting nickle and dime you to death, to the point that you can't actually do your job. You know ... things like deciding that the RAM you need to build a test server is too expensive, so you should get by with a tiny fraction of what you tell your customers they should have. Meaning it takes about 4 times as long to actually run the software or do anything with it. I saw one example, where instead of buying two new, modern machines for QA ... a truckload of obsolete machines was shipped in that was bought from auction, with the belief that QA could cobble together a modern system out of 10 year old parts. In the end, they spent more on shipping a truck full of obsolete computers than the new ones would have cost ... and, the old obsolete ones were essentially junked almost immediately since they were so old. This was the decision of accountants.
At a certain point, the accountants can become people who mostly specialize in making sure you have to expend ridiculous energy justifying what it is you do in order to do your job. They effectively become the gatekeepers of actually building stuff, and they make you jump through obscene hoops to do even the most basic things.
It's right up there with HR people or managers who get think of people as interchangeable components because the "skills matrix" you filled out has some of the same boxes checked. It usually demonstrates a distinct lack of understanding of the actual work performed by your company.
I'm not saying that all companies should bow down before their mighty developer/engineer overlords -- but it is really pathetic to see what should be a technology company being stymied by bean counters who have you filling our your time sheets in four different systems (I know people who do this), and fighting to get even the basic tools for your job.
My job isn't, and likely never will be the most important one in the company. But, don't go out of your way to make it seem like mine is the least important one in the company as well and make me a slave to a byzantine process which is designed to ensure you can't get anything done.
When accounting makes your like feel like a Dilbert strip, well, the company has probably jumped the shark.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I have that kind of thing all the time, all on one monitor, with windows that are side-by-side or partially overlapping (yay for pointer based focus). And if the app I'm working on needs to be full-screen in order to work reasonably, there's something wrong with the app and its UI needs to be redesigned.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The developer can still develop fine with a single monitor. He will just be much slower. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/18/234899/Multiple-monitors-boost-productivity-by-35.5.htm
That study says that going from one monitor to three gives a 35% productivity boost. If the cost of the programmer to the company is 100K a year (if you include all overhead, it is probably more than that), then the company will experience a loss of 25K worth of labor by cheaping out and not spending a few hundred bucks on a couple more monitors. Basically, the extra monitors pay for themselves in one week. What business wouldn't want to do this?
I personally believe so strongly that there is a huge productivity gain from extra screen real estate, that I've had an eight monitor set up for many years now. Here's my first http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/gallery_browse.asp?ID=636&date=desc&nummon=true&mon=desc
The lower row is what I'm currently working on. The upper row is where I put things that other people would minimize or let other applications cover them. Basically, I never minimize to the taskbar, and I almost never have windows covering other windows. I would say this setup has improved my productivity at least 50%, and made my work much less stressful.
When I first built an Octomon setup (that's what I call it), it cost about 12 grand. If I were building one today, I would probably go with four 30" monitors (even more pixels than my eight 24" monitors) or eight of the Apple 27" monitors. Either way would be significantly less than what it used to cost for a much better system. There are great video cards out these days that make building these systems a snap (my first one took about two days of fiddling and trying different video cards to make it work).
I don't actually care about monitors, but just about the best 22"-24" LCD is what, about $500 these days? If something like that is a point of contention, it's not a place I want to work for.
It costs under $5k to outfit a developer with just about anything they want for 2-4 years - compared to developer time it's not just insignificant, it's not noticeable.
sic transit gloria mundi
I'm a network manager- not a developer, but being able to have log files scrolling on one screen while I perform an action that's not functioning makes me more productive. Also, having a configuration window on one screen, while a full page of documentation on the other makes that process more efficient.
Truth be told, it's about available screen real-estate, not necessarily a second monitor. However, in my experience, I've found 2 19" displays is much cheaper than the equivalent screen real estate in a single monitor.
Cue the giant e-peen measuring contest in 1... 2... 3
No sooner do I get over one, then you put a better one right next to me. Bastards.
On a Mac, it's really easy to keep track of windows. F9 arranges all windows, giving you a chance to choose the one you want. F10 goes one better in singling out those windows for just the current app. I used to be really picky about keeping windows neat and organized. Now, I don't care - just hit F9 or F10 and grab the one I want. It can be annoying to hop between one and another frequently, but better short-term memory would help, there. Wet-ware, that is...
It seems to me that most people who feel like they need multiple monitors really just need better window management. Unless you are able to actually look at two different monitors at once, the other will always be wasted. Becoming efficient with key-bindings for your WM is a much better way to get your workflow organized.
Just keep swimming.
For me it's a necessity. For web development I usually have code editor on left monitor and browser(s) on the right.. Also the right monitor serves as a place for documentation and reference manuals.
At one point my "office" system had 3 monitors.. where the 3rd monitor primarily hosed email.
But I have found the extra screen real-estate greatly improves my productivity. So if companies REALLY want their developers to only have one monitor.. get them a nice 30" cinema screen.. :-D Though it'd be cheaper to just get then 2 or 3 24" monitors.
a second monitor to run vi?
My wife and I both have dual monitor setups. She's a writer and uses one screen for the article she's working on and the other for her research. I had dual monitors first and she kept looking over my shoulder an saw how convenient it was, so she asked me to get the same thing for her.
One of my hobbies is genealogy so having my genealogy database program open on one screen and research on the other. When I've got my web design hat on, it's my editor on one screen and a browser on the other to keep checking my work.
I definitely feel like I've got blinders on if I only have one monitor.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Wow.. another Xmonad user! I am, and have been for nearly twenty years, a dual monitor user. I tend to keep code on one monitor and other stuff (reference material, chat, browser, etc) on the other. I suppose I could get by with one very large monitor (of at least 100dpi) but it best not be that 16:9 widescreen crapola. That is absolutely the worst thing to ever happen with montiors/displays. If you watch that many movies on your pc or laptop I'd suggest you get a life and use the tv for what it was meant for. We need more veritical, not horizontal. The page has always been taller than wide because thats just what works for humans.
Not really... Its on the first one... the second its for todo's...? Working hard...
-no sig today-
I love two monitors. I use the second one to run remote desktops (sometimes) and nearly always I run SQL Server Management Studio Express. Since my applications are largely database-driven, having a SQL window constantly open makes live much easier. I can jump over and do things while waiting for a compile or whatever, and can then reference query results as I'm doing other stuff on the main window. It's been very handy, and it can stay maximized. Sadly, almost all applications on Windows don't handle multiple monitors very well and SQL Server is no exception, doing odd things from time to time. (Like putting some windows in on the first monitor.) And using RDC to my computer with 2 monitors is a sure way to screw stuff up, like putting windows completely off of all screens. Windows is really stupid.
On my Mac, I have a single 30" monitor (2560x1600) which took some getting used to since it's just so large. But, once I did, I realized found that two monitors is better for me than a single huge one. (I ended up using virtual desktops on the Mac.)
While it makes me more productive, it really depends on what I'm doing. If I'm just writing C for a non-DB application, a single monitor is fine. So, while nice, it's not a 25% productivity boost. In fact, my co-worker has 4 monitors. He mostly uses RDC on them, but he seems to spend too much time switching between them to make a good case for multiple monitors.
I don't know, but it works for me.
The question is, do I have enough screen space to have all those windows, or at least the ones I need, open at the same time? Multiple monitors makes it much easier to do that.
My money is on the complete lack of virtual desktops on Microsoft's platform.
Yes, there are third party apps that add the capability, but I don't know a single Windows developer who uses them. On the other hand, I don't know a single Linux developer who DOESN'T use them... (now watch Slashdot provide countless counter examples).
Developing on a system without virtual desktops *or* a second (at least) monitor is a huge pain in the ass.
Have you ever tried to use butterflies?
so
your
code
looks
like
this?
how is babby formed?
Rats, I'm reading it on my primary monitor. My work is on the second monitor.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Me too, but computing resources tend to find their way to me. I have 4 external screens hooked up to my laptop at work, and at home I have a monster PC workstation with 8 22" screens arranged in a 4x2 matrix. Nothing beats web developing on 8 screens, except maybe 10 screens. Having to switch windows often while developing, creates 'friction', and slows down development time. Hardware is so cheap, it's ridiculous to be developing on a single screen unless your dev environment is so sparse that all you have is a text window and a command line to run the program. Web development often requires testing on many browsers, in different VMs, and lots of tools that get used very often in the course of developing. Having instant access to the most used windows will save you time and stress. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
-100 Points if the monitor cannot display 60fps at native resolution, -1000 if it cannot even handle 30fps.
- Raynet --> .
When I work in a company and not at home, I use the tools the company provides me with. If the computer is too small or the monitor too bad I complain exactly once. After that I work gladly with whatever tool I have. Ok, in some companies my speed is two times or even three times faster than in others, but this isn't my problem anymore. If they want to pay me for waiting or shuffling windows around instead of doing productive work... no problem, the cost is the same. I must be a bit careful with the exact wording of the contracts, but that's all.
My first Web Dev job I only had one monitor... the computer I worked on didn't even have a second monitor port, so I couldn't even bring my own in! With web dev... it helps a TON to have one monitor with the IDE, and the other monitor with at least one browser, if not several of them split up, for checking as you're updating styling or content or scripts. If you're really balls deep in a project, you may need multiple code files open at once, or code and reference pages. It just overall helps, if not make the process faster, at least make it less frustrating.
My kingdom - such as it is - for mod-points. This is exactly what I'm doing now, and it would be insanely painful to have one monitor with all this crap crammed into it. Also holds true developing and debugging windows applications; code/IDE on one monitor, application on the other; in certain cases, the window flip will cause events to be hit in code you don't want, and the "extra" monitor pays for itself almost instantly in reduced frustration and developer time.
When I'm working on GUI apps, it is much, much, much easier to have the app running on one monitor, and the debug session with code on the other. This way, when I'm doing something on the app, I'm not covering up the code.
$200? An ATI Radeon HD 5870 6 monitor setup runs about $500 for the card, $150 for a mount, and $1200 for the monitors. That's still a fraction of what an experienced developer makes in a year; even if all it does is give your employees serious geek cred it's worth the $2k and I highly doubt an experienced developer won't be able to find ways to use 6 monitors while doing complex work. Yeah, it's probably overkill, but if it keeps your employees happy and costs a pittance (relatively speaking) why not? Of course, reality for most of us is a 6 year old desktop with at most 2 monitors, even if developers making 6 figures are often enough stuck with that.
For a developer that has to use a development environment matched with a db environment matched with a file envirionment matched with documentation and matched with lookups online for issues problems, solutions. Two monitors is the very least.
We have one web developer that is working on forms all the time and she has 4 monitors.
Right now I have 3 browsers, 1 email client, 2 windows explores, 2 command prompt windows, 2 db studios, 3 word documents , 12 notepad instances, and one development environment open on my desktop, usually I have more. But the big thing is the correlation between different things, like comparing two bits of code or cutting and pasting between the DB schema and the code or a text file.
Screen realestate is precious and the more you have the more things you can correlate and refer to with just the movment of the eyes and not the mouse or hiding your work to see other documents the better.
More screens, give me more screens!
The cost to benefit ratio is just way too good not to get developers a second monitor. I mean seriously, if it increases productivity of a developer by 1% it will pay for itself 5 - 10 times over the course of a year.
Holy crap, AMEN to that! Vertical resolution was fine until HDTVs became popular. At which point everybody regressed and went to max 1080 high displays just so they could coin that they were "true HD" in marketing. All my pre-HDTV monitors are 1200px high. I consider that to be absolutely necessary. All my post-HDTV monitors are at most 1080 high, if even that (1050 is common). It's near impossible to find anything with 1200px high display with a reasonable price tag anymore.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
But the human eye works better horizontally. Why do you think eyeglasses are the shape they are?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Agreed. Silly as they come.
If you have a proper IDE with context-lookups, multi file handling and backtracking as well as version control you don't need several vim windows, web lookups and several external cross-reference utilitys taking up screen-realestate; virtual or real.
Debugging can also be a part of it too, even if cross-compiling. Less ned for that VM, if you can run it on a real remote target.
Yeah, I use one. If you dont have expose then install DExpose2 or use a mac or use Compiz. Your saying you don't have enough space is merely being whiny - we've taken care of that. now take care of your short term memory so you can flip back and forth, and use the extra money to buy some beer and relax.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
What if you open windows side-by-side...and you still don't have space?
I design circuit boards. I have three monitors. One is devoted to nothing but toolbars. In fact, it has about 5-10 toolbars, depending on whether I'm looking at a schematic or a PCB.
The second monitor shows the PCB (and a few other toolbars).
The third monitor shows the schematic.
At any time, one of the monitors might be hijacked for displaying a datasheet. Or a manufacturer's web page. Or an embedded C program. Or a bunch of folders. Or a notepad full of notes.
:(){
Does coding require watching two or three screens of information at one time? Not really.
I don't think that's the question that should be asked. Sure, anybody can do their job with 1 monitor. The argument is whether or not they are as productive.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
No I'm not letting you have my workspace you insensitive clod!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You missed the first and the best one:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-10-16/
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
The premium on vertical space is precisely why two of my three monitors are in Portrait mode instead of Landscape. It is *so* nice to see the full page of a datasheet at 100% size without scrolling.
:(){
There are two very good reasons to have two monitors when coding. They are both related with the ability to browse the internet. The first is to have the ability to do search for fixes to various issues that you will run into during the day. Being forced to switch back and forth between windows on a single monitor can become frustrating and inhibit productivity. The second reason is to have the ability to take small mental breaks throughout the day. The ability to take a 3-5 minute break to relax the mind is probably one of the most underestimated productivity issues in a work environment. This issue has been known in the VFX industry for a while and they encourage these small breaks. It is almost the opposite for any other business office, where internet browsing is looked upon as anti-productive.
Sorry, its not a case of managing windows, its a case of what you can see at the same time and that is a function of screen realestate. Now if you can dome up with the equivalent to what I used to have with a 22 in analog (square) screen with enough definition to put two screens worth of text on one screen then yes. But with the current LCD HD formatted screens, one screen is inadequate for the work.
Or it may be that you job is so straight forward that you are not interplaying a lot of disparate elements into what you do. That being the case then under those circumstances you might be right.
The amount of data you use and the number of windows open is directly proportional to the number of screens you have. ( Not that all of it is useful or needed.) If the space is there, we fill it up. It is like the tantalizing lure of a flat horizontal surface in my house; it must have something resting on it or it is "empty." Back in the days of "Open Windows" we just used to switch between screens (something still pretty common in unix today). We could create as much real estate as we wanted, all of it on one monitor. Having that wealth, I really never used more than four screens at a time. Anything more and I just got lost. While I ENJOY having two screens, if the work needed to be done and all I had was a VT100, it would do.
Have you ever tried to use butterflies?
Well, not successfully. I travel back in time looking for the right butterfly, but I am colorblind, and I think I've been squashing moths.
Actually, I'm reading it on my fourth monitor, which is a 42" Sony in portrait mode.
I use three monitors at work, too. And I go home to one. And when I do any coding at home, it hurts. Even if I take the time to precisely arrange and size all the windows on my single monitor, I still find myself alt-tabbing constantly.
If you can do all your coding on one monitor without any productivity loss, you aren't writing serious code.
:(){
Hardly. I simply am not aware of what different coders would need or want. I am mainly focused on graphics (outside of some HTML/CSS type of stuff) and having a second monitor is damn near essential. Of course, I'm primarily looking at work print renders in realtime. I don't know what coders would look at before compiling... unless they want to check performance and debugging options.
Hence the "perhaps not". That equates just as easily to "perhaps so".
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Holy crap, AMEN to that! Vertical resolution was fine until HDTVs became popular. At which point everybody regressed and went to max 1080 high displays just so they could coin that they were "true HD" in marketing. All my pre-HDTV monitors are 1200px high. I consider that to be absolutely necessary. All my post-HDTV monitors are at most 1080 high, if even that (1050 is common). It's near impossible to find anything with 1200px high display with a reasonable price tag anymore.
AMEN! I've got a pair of Dell 2007FPs, which are 1600x1200 and literally twice as expensive as anything else in Dell's portfolio of 20"-class monitors (which are all so-called HD at 1920x1080). The whole wide-screen thing drives me nuts. Vertical space is where it's at for writing code, trying to look at a whole bunch of waveforms in ModelSim, etc. I sorta inherited a 24" HD monitor with a test-bed computer, and it takes up more space on my desk and has less usable resolution.
I tried rotating the 24" 90 degrees to get back the vertical resolution but it's way too tall that way.
Bring back 4x3 monitors!
Coding might not require it, but it certainly can help a lot. At one point I had three displays set up. One for writing in, one for displaying documentation on, and one for displaying the view that the user would get so I could see how my programming was working out. Granted, this was in the 15" to 17" display days, but using what was a user-normal display was handy for ensuring what I created would work for almost everybody.
Monitors are not all that expensive. It's foolish to take a monitor from one whose job is to create the very products that generate revenue for a company and to give that monitor to someone whose job is to do work internal to the company.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I read it on my first monitor.....
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Yup, dual HP LP2065 IPS (for those all important 3200 x 1200 pixels that actually handle highlighting in pastel). At work only 2 x 17", but dual screens none-the-less. Where are the 1600x1200 LED S-IPS business screens? Pretty please with sugar on top?
This may depend on your main monitor's size, though.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
But every context switch costs you some "time" - it takes you away from the task at hand and into the task of finding what you need. If you've got it spread out across several monitors, the task can become as short as "move eyes" vs "search through this pile of windows and then, if needed, mangle everything so you can see what you need seen all together"
It depends on the task, and as well how close to the 'meta' you're working. If you stop to metaphorically scratch your ass every 5 seconds, then it doesn't really help much.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
When I started my most recent job, they gave me a monitor to hook to the laptop they gave me. I mirrored the desktops for a while as the larger print on the monitor made things a bit easier. As time went on and I found myself doing more and more, I switched over to extending the desktop. The ability to have one screen filled with items that are only used occasionally but are often needed quickly and throughout the day and the other filled with dynamic content that is being updated continuously. More than once, I've had times where a 3rd monitor would be helpful. Between remote desktops, instant messaging, email/calendar, ticketing systems, and more; having to keep track of so many different things in a single monitor is just not feasible if you plan on obtaining any sort of production.
I develop HTML5 based robotic heart surgery machines running on top of jQuery beneath AJAX served by node.js off of an Amazon mounted Rackspace Cloud written in Clojure, and I've had it with LCD Screens, CRTs, and so-called editors.
A classic case of using the WRONG TOOL for the job. (I know you were trying to be funny, but still...)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I have a pair of monitors, my favorite keyboard and mouse, and an Aeron chair that will follow me wherever I work. Employer supplies the box (although I'd still rather bring my own). When I start, the supplied 14" burned CRT, keyboard full of dandruff, and backbreaking cheapo office chair go back into the supply room.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
A developer does not need a second monitor. At least in the same way carpenter doesn't *need* a tool box. A grocery bag would "work". But if you're paying her by the hour, you should hope that she has the tools necessary to make the most of your money!
...This was the decision of accountants.
Wrong. That is a decision of management. Unless the manager and the accountant are the same person (rarely a good idea) fiascoes like the one you outline cannot happen because of accountants. The sole job of an accountant is to keep track of how the money in the company is spent. Their job is NOT to decide how to spend the money. That is the role of management. If the two jobs get combined, that is a potential recipe for problems and an indication the company is poorly structured but it isn't a problem with accounting per-se.
At a certain point, the accountants can become people who mostly specialize in making sure you have to expend ridiculous energy justifying what it is you do in order to do your job.
That just makes them bad at their job. That has nothing to do with accounting or accountants in general. The job of an accountant is to keep track of the money. This can be done efficiently or inefficiently just like any other job. A good accountant is incredibly valuable and a real asset to the company. A bad one... well, you know how that goes.
Oh, and I should mention that sometimes accountants ask you for information for very good reasons which you may not fully understand. Just like they don't really fully comprehend your job, don't think for a moment you fully comprehend theirs. Part of the job of an accountant is to watch for fraud and waste. I've seen plenty of cases where departments try to game the budgeting system to get resources they don't really need. The more departments try to game the system, the unfortunate but natural response is additional red tape. Obviously it's quite possible have too much bureaucracy but it is also just as bad to have too little. It's a balance that is sometimes hard to get right.
Disclosure: I am both a degreed engineer and a certified accountant. I happen to know both sides of this classic conflict quite well. A tip I give all engineers is to learn as much accounting as you can. It's FAR easier to get the equipment and resources you want if you can speak the language of finance.
Can't say I have done that, but one of the reasons that I refuse to purchase a laptop is due to the screen resolution. Since about 1995 or so, at work I've used 1600x1200 monitor. Going home to my 1024x768 was painful. Today, I'm on a 28" 1920x1080 (16:10) display. I couldn't even imagine going to some of those low vertical resolutions on a laptop.
As with most technology, it integrates into how we work, how we process, and even how we plan. Going backwards is extremely difficult. Imagine having to go back to running Windows on an old Pentium 100mhz.- It is much more difficult that one originally thinks. You are completely correct when you say it is incredibly painful.
Just the hassle of having to flip back and forth between code and documents or emails on a single screen is enough to warrant a second screen. I'd say no person should experience less than 2 screens but I would say it's very necessary for developers. I'm not sure I would work for someone tight enough to only provide one monitor now that I've experienced the awesomeness of multiple monitors.
If the company is so tight fisted that they can't splurge $150-$180 for another monitor, then it's time to move to another company.
You've never worked for a startup I take it? I've been in plenty of companies where $150 might make the difference between meeting payroll or firing staff. Cash can be really tight in a small company and there might not be any excess to spend on equipment that might be nice but not absolutely necessary. Not saying that is the case with this particular company but it isn't remotely hard to find examples where there isn't any excess money for optional equipment.
I used to have two monitors when they were at 1280x1024. Now at my office there are 27" displays, I put that at 1920x1200, I have two files open simultaneously on a split view (as well as the file-tree on a side panel). My doc is in another workspace, Switching them is as easy as turning my neck (shortkey+compiz). Add to this the ability to put windows "Always on top" (I hear Windows finally got it! Welcome to the 21st century! Still no workspace though) Have been recently given the opportunity to have two 27" and discarded it. I prefer room on my desk to put stacks of papers, notebook, sticky notes. An incredible amount of software development still has to be made on dead trees.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Actually, I got rid of my chair at work, and love it.
Oh, can't count to 80, huh?
Caveat Utilitor
*chuckle* I find 'proper IDEs' to be the bane of single monitor use. They take up the whole screen, and inevitably you'll need to do something outside the IDE, and because of how the stupid thing is designed, this means you have to bring up a window that was previously not at all visible to sit on top of some vitally important part of your IDE.
No, I use a single screen, and a whole ton of windows. I have windows devoted to compiler output, windows devoted to the running application, 2 or 3 code windows, and a window or two with a bunch of tabs devoted to documentation.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
gah! meta -> metal
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Call me super spoiled. I have 4 monitors at work & home. Both setups have a 30" Samsung in the center. The rest are older smaller monitors scrounged from wherever i could find them. I can't even imagine going back to 2 monitors. I am a developer.
Main 30" monitor. - Dev code GUI
2nd monitor - email
3rd monitor main web research / dev program output while coding
4th live router status / stock widgets / pandora / onenote
TODO create witty sig.
I agree with your sentiment, but there are other considerations to make in a business setting. As far as simple costs go, the sticker price on another monitor might be $200, but there are often large costs beyond sticker price in the corporate world. The purchase has to be requested formally, then approved, then ordered, received, and installed. The real cost in accounting, paperwork, and labor could be a surprisingly large percentage of the final cost. Granted, there's almost no plausible final price at which this isn't a worthwhile investment if, as you say, the developer realizes even a fraction of a point in productivity gained, but never forget that nothing is cheap in business.
The other thing is that sometimes people can be irrational weasels. If getting a new monitor for this guy inspires someone from accounting to request one for better spreadsheet management, and ultimately everyone down to the mailboy starts thinking they need dual displays, that's a lot of money and annoyance in the short run in exchange for relatively small productivity gains in the long run. Then you factor in the relatively small possibilities that some people who get more screen space will therefore require more desk space and thus better furniture to accommodate it, which could lead to people needing more square footage, etc.
And god help the company if someone decides that they don't need a new monitor, but someone else got something cool so they want a better chair. Some people react irrationally to the perceived status inequality behind equipment purchases. It's pure monkey brain at work, but it creates a lot of tiresome whining and bloated spending sometimes.
Anyway, you're fundamentally right. In almost any imaginable it's probably better to buy the guy a new monitor, but don't underestimate the chain of annoyances such a purchase might cause.
You know when you see one of those awesome 80's guitarists with a double-guitar? It's like that.
...and you'd have spent 100x as much money as the second monitor - at least - and you still wouldn't get the same amount of productivity, because BOTH of them will leave and go somewhere where they feel valued enough to be given the tools to do their job.
I can't believe that anyone who has ever written even the tiniest amount of code considered this a serious question for more than half a second. Next Week on Slashdot: Do Developers Really Need a Keyboard?
You speak the truth brother. At home I have two 22" on either side with a vertical 24" in the middle and a 15" tucked into the side of my case. I'm still trying to work out how to integrate the 50" plasma, but for now it's in front of the couch for movies and gaming.
At work, two screens BARELY suffices.
Heh... SCORE!!!
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A developer can develop on a 9" netbook screen just fine.
They will however, be more productive with more screen real estate. And multiple monitors helps when dealing with systems that don't manage windows very well and even in those that do as a help in mentally partitioning things.
Is saving $200 worth the lower productivity? There's the business decision...
No, because I use small function sizes to reduce indentation levels. And smaller function sizes mean fewer variables which means I can have shorter names that are still meaningful and distinguished. And I avoid creating conditionals with a whole ton of clauses, and use other techniques to create small local aliases for long global names (which means I don't generally program in Java).
This means my code naturally fits in 80 columns most of the time without awkward wrapping.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I have three, if you count the built-in on my laptop. If I did not have two company-provided external monitors (a 22 and a 24) I'd probably pay for the extra external out of my own pocket. For some months last year, I worked from home due to an injury and upgraded my home office with a $600 monitor and a $1000 chair (yes, I do have a chair and monitor like that it work) so that I could have a home office that was equal to my office office. Yes, a second monitor is that helpful.
Between the 2 external monitors, I'm also running 20 virtual desktops. Going back to a single monitor would be almost as hard as giving up virtual desktops, and an OS that doesn't have native virt desktops is fundamentally broken (I'm looking at you, Microsoft).
i even prefer 3 fo rvideo editing, 1 output, 1 timeline, and one viewers/browsers/mixers (i use FCP) even for music making, less than 2 is a real pain, again i work with 3, 1 timeline, 1 mixer and one for as many important pugins i need to access quickly
Live Electronic Music
Maybe, but circular eyeglasses do exist (Harry Potter's model) and newspapers have been mostly vertical for centuries.
I think it's a matter of preferences. Thanks God I still have a tall display and vertical space is not so much at a premium as on the modern reduced-height screens. I tend to put two windows side by side, usually browser and editor.
The Swordfish guy was retarded. Seriously, who would want a huge chasm in the center of their wall of monitors?
Conversely: Any software created on one monitor may or may not work spread across two monitors (happened where I worked).
That it does. For my main workstation, I prefer to have at least a 19" monitor, and prefer a 21" if I can get it.
I'm also rather disappointed at the whole 1080p thing and how that's caused monitor resolutions to top out.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
With one screen you tend to automatically blow up the window you're working on to the maximum extent possible; even working on a 27" iMac with 2560x1440 pixels, it doesn't seem like enough, so I use my work laptop to hold the browser whilst the development is done on the iMac.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
My fight is over: devs from an external firm now get 2 monitors, as do the DB developers. You know: the people that cost even *more* per hour. The fight is continuing: as one of the top devs with 3 external devs around me, I'm now going to fight to give them a telephone. Do you believe these cheap fucking idiots?
Ships. *moves post from 3rd monitor to 2nd monitor*
Privacy is terrorism.
Do you really want to mix your 100DPI computer monitors with a TV at half that density? Personally, the scaling differences would screw me up.
Our group has dual monitors & productivity is higher. Everyone agrees that the extra desktop space saves real-time when managing multiple windows (which is what we do 8 hours a day).
And for the relatively cheap cost of an extra monitor, It's well worth it.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
My notebook is about 13" wide and if it had one of those things called wide screens the width of its screen would be exactly the same as the one it came with. What I'd get would be a shorter screen.
The same considerations apply to TV sets. If you have to fit a modern one in a constrained space what you get is a shorter TV with less viewing area than your old 4:3 TV. But wide screen is a better selling proposition than short screen, which is what they really are.
An Apple one and another 2 with IPS panels.
You need this when running 5 instances of Visual Studio.
(Perversely, he has VI plugins for VS, Firefox etc.)
I make sure all my guys have at least 2 if they want them.
main() {1;}
Don't spoil those code monkeys with a second monitor!
Hell, give those devs the old 386s you have in the garage and make 'em work without an Internet connection. Just think of all the money you'll save! Yessiree, paying someone near $100/hr (base/benefits/etc.) and then strangling their productivity by saving the cost equivalent of less than two hours of work --brilliant! You can almost smell the profit!
.
Ask me about my sig!
I do not program. I am just far more efficient with two.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
That's easy! Move your desk to the side of the TV! :D That's what I did :)
I develop hardware, so I often have a Printed Circuit Board editor open on one monitor, and its associated schematic editor on the other. With these two apps, plus a bunch of PDF's of component specs, and the web page of my favourite component distributor, all open and 'in play' at once, I feel restricted even with only two monitors. Having only one would be out of the question, unless that one monitor was much bigger than I can currently afford. Also, the second monitor seems like a more logical 'split' than an imaginary line in the middle of a single monitor.
I think most heavy computer users would benefit from a multi-monitor setup, even the accounting and management types who think of such things as superfluous. Multiple monitors are like cell phones used to be - they seem unnecessary until you've had one for a few weeks, then they're indispensable.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Everyone in my office, a market research company, has two monitors. For development, it's very useful. I have the application I'm working on on one screen and the code open in the debugger on the other. I'm sort of curious: was the monitor taken to give someone else a second monitor (in which case I ask do accounts really need a second monitor more than a developer) or was it for a first monitor (in which case I ask where the previously headless computer came from).
#include <signature.h>
Pfft. I'm reading this post on my third computer. :-p
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
I thought people who had two monitors were self indulgent show offs, and a bit ridiculous. Until I got a second monitor. Holy Cow!! It made so many things easier and faster. I watched our Accountant go through the same resist-at-first process, and then get blown away at how much easier his job was with two monitors - contracts and spreadsheets up at the same time, amazing! This is a case where there is no understanding without experiencing it.
10 Points for Gilmoure!
I drank what? -- Socrates
I used multiple monitors for years; since approximately the time when it first became somewhat feasible in a Windows (but also Linux) environment. Recently, I gave up my dual 24" Samsungs for a single NEC 3090WQXi professional-grade 30" LCD. I would have liked to keep the 2nd monitor, but just didn't have enough desk space with the gargantuan NEC on-board. For coding, it's been somewhat of a hassle - though I don't code nearly as much as I once did. On the other hand, unlike another commenter I've seen no real issue with graphic design and video production. For me, the practice of filling up the 2nd screen with pallets and preview window went away once I had 2560x1600 pixels worth of real estate on a single monitor. I'd say though that for as inexpensive as a 'generic' monitor is, and considering that any video card worth its salt has dual outputs, I wouldn't really begrudge *anyone* who said that they wanted another monitor. They definitely come in handy.
If there's a minimum resolution that (by policy) your site must support (say, 1024 x 768), then every page must be viewed at that resolution. On a Mac, you can write an AppleScript to toggle screen resolution and trigger it with a voice command. But on Windows, you have to right-click on the desktop, switch the resolution manually, confirm the change of resolution, maximize your page to the new resolution, right-click on the desktop, switch the resolution back and confirm the change. A bit much, which discourages resolution testing.
But with a second monitor that's always set to the minimum resolution you must support, you can un-maximize, drag to the second monitor, maximize, un-maximize, drag back to the good monitor, re-maximize. I do this on my work Windows machine's second monitor all the time. Much easier.
It seems that most of the posts above focus on whether or not it's cost-effective to give developers monitors, cost of monitor versus cost of developer. But if the question is whether or not developers actually need monitors, shouldn't we be coming up with a list of needs? This is a legitimate business need. Management may disagree with it, but without a list of specific reasons why you think you need one, it will always seem to be just a vague want.
I'm not a developer, but %90 of my work is in Excel and AutoCad at the same time. Not only does a second monitor make a noticeable impact on my productivity, but having a wide screen on both also makes a noticeable impact. Being able to put a lot of information up at once without wasting a lot of time scrolling around drawings and spreadsheets just saves time, and there are times that that time is a lot more precious then a couple hundred bucks.
If you really think that your employes don't have anything better to do then having to constantly flip windows around, even having to take notes so they can look at two pieces of data at once, your organization has a lot bigger problems.
I think that's some spare room for his futuristic projector of 3D hacking cubes.
Me too, but computing resources tend to find their way to me.
So that's what happened to my monitor! I really found it hard to believe the cleaning crew stole it.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
In my most productive configuration I use three monitors.
Front-and-center is the programming environment where my output goes, that is, the center screen is where "I am working".
Right-of-center is the monitor where I have consultation resources. This API definitions, RFCs, exemplar code blocks, that sort of thing. This is taken directly from the layout of a "word processing station". I don't know why its easier to consult resources on the right of the center eyeline, but it seems to be universally true.
Left of center (most likely to be sacrificed if I can't get three monitors) is where "requirements, interruptions, past failures, and distractions" live. This is where I will have things like email clients (if I even bother having one open) and screen captures of previous runs that contain "interesting features" (e.g. faults etc), and also where I will put mini-vacation things (web pages, break materials etc). The natural bias that disfavors the left-of-eyeline screen means that I won't spend too much time over there, but I also wont have to dig around over there if I go there at all.
Int the shortest version, the "second screen" is like having the book open on the desk when you need to consult a reference. It sucks to have to hide your work when you want to consult a reference.
The typical IDE already eats monitor space wiht "helper" tools and sub windows that you mentally ignore 85% of the time. Forcing your development staff to then shrink of cover their IDE so that they can read a manual page or find code is just _requiring_ them to interrupt their own workflow.
The third monitor is _nice_ but not _required_.
I'd say that giving the second monitor to Accounting probably did less for the accountant than it did cost the developer.
Next, the developer now has to re-invent all his two-monitor work habits to "crowd then into just the one screen".
Plus, when you just take things from people you eat a huge amount of good will. (it's a smack in the face even if they _don't_ use the taken object).
All in all, taking the $300 monitor form the developer probably cost the original poster a _minimum_ of 2 months of the developer's salary.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I have, and I see no difference between having multiple monitors and having multiple non-maximized windows open at the same time. I think the fetish for multiple monitors is because application designers are are incredibly annoyingly bad and design their applications to not really work so well when they aren't maximized.
Most of the applications I use are not maximized and work fine that way. But I'm an odd duck and a bit of an old-school Unix geek. Lots of emacs and terminal windows with the occasional browser window.
I find multiple monitors to be mildly annoying because they are often a bit of a pain to get set up properly on a Fedora system (thought that's gotten better). I would much rather have my main monitor be somewhat bigger and have a whole ton more pixels.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
It's not so much before compiling, as after. Being able to see the running program along with your IDE and/or debugger at the same time makes tracking down bugs much easier. Especially if it's a full-screen app like a game.
Why is this even a story, havent you learned anything from watching swordfish???
Seriously though, I find that my work time improves dramatically the more screens i have, as it avoids me wasting too much time swinging from one app to another,
where as i can leave my prog stuff open on 1, my dev stuff on another, and my reading and email on a third.
I could not function lower then 2,, and 3 is best...but that's just me.
...if only I had two monitors -- /. was buried under Eclipse so I lost my chance :(
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
If it is that important to you stop moaning, go out and buy a 22" Viewsonic. Put a bloody great "Personal Property of..." sticker on it and plonk it on your desk. It will cost less than a cup of coffee per week.
That is exactly what I did - guess what happened? Everybody else in the office got company owned second monitors.
So I took mine home, and asked for a newer bigger one, as it was important to me.
I'm at home you insensitive clod!
I have been tempted to get my own chair :-)
But it does make things a lot easier for testing the display of your work in a maximized view without having to switch between windows.
Ave Molech Setting
I prop my iPad in front of me with the documentation on it. Better than a second monitor since I can take it with my laptop and still have my "two-monitor" config for developing while having documentation handy.
A desktop PC + 19" monitor can be had for $300 (refurbished). I don't see any reason to deny somebody two computers who wants two.
I don't respond to AC's.
At home I replaced my two 21" monitors with a single 28" Hanns-g monitor. Bad Idea I cannot wait to get back to what I have at work 2x22" monitors. The only advantage of my *single* 22" monitor is that I can sit further from it. I am only wasting physical desktop space with this monstrosity.
I use a 42TV and a 24, from the couch. I don't move stuff from to the other, I use them in completely different ways. I play TV through the TV card (media player classic) onto the 24" monitor, while I web and work with the 42. My priorities are pretty obvious.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
It could be that in this particular case they did not care about the programmer. That's fine, they're not all invaluable corporate assets. Some are just self-important twits who are always complaining.
In my experience, all profitable companies are tight fisted. Sure it's only $150 for good second monitor, but will the employee stop there? Maybe they want a better chair, or a better desk, or an upgraded computer? Now apply that expense to every single employee (you definitely do not give stuff only to the whiners, it seriously ruins morale for everyone else). Soon you're talking real money and your VP is breathing down your neck and the CEO is griping at him and the board of directors is asking for cuts in every department.
Now if you were the sort to actually be productive then maybe you can squeeze out an extra bonus and pay for the monitor yourself. Maybe with the monitor you purchased you will be so much more productive that the management will actually notice and decide to buy extras for everyone.
..if you need two monitors, you're a pussy.
Now that I've gotten the trolling out of the way..yes, I get why someone would want more space. I don't get why they care about the number of monitors rather than the total pixels or area, though. But maybe that's an economics thing, where a 2n-square-inch display costs more than twice as much as an n-square-inch display, so asking for more smaller monitors is more likely to happen.
When I read other comments here, one of the surprising things is that people say switching between windows is a pain in the ass. For some reason this conjures up an image of people having to wait for their computers to redraw window contents because they don't have blitters. Obviously that's not the real problem, but I do think if people find window switching to be a pain, then something about desktops is broken.
FWIW I use a Mac at work, and when I get home to Linux I often find myself wanting Expose. (In fact, that's pretty much the only uniquely cool thing about the Mac UI; everything else is pretty much the same, or different-but-no-better-or-worse.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In other news the account department has decided to reduce desk and cubicle size significantly to save money.
http://www.sandiegocubicles.com/blog/top-3-perks-of-really-small-cubicles/
Accounting department manager Bob (spelled with 2 O's) was heard saying "no if only we could stack them..."
Strangely enough the same month the HR department noticed a "problem" with their employee retention program, as top talent left in droves.
[conclusion: Accountants understand cost. Not value.]
[conclusion 2: when dealing with top talent different rules apply. aka they can and will leave.]
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
I just Alt-Tab back and forth between vi and Firefox. You have to anyway, even with two monitors, to change keyboard focus. By the way, I don't need my mouse, either.
Probably the IT guy was out of monitors and the new hire showed up that day and a monitor was needed, then hunted around and found the least productive employee who had two monitors? Maybe the asked that employee's manager first?
I've definitely seen things done on a shoestring budget before, especially with accounting. Ie, the company is considering going public but they need to get all the Sorbanes-Oxley paperwork in order, and they hire 10 accountants and put them all into a conference room like sardines for several months (they didn't even get their own desks).
Much easier to turn my eyes and see the invoice I am trying to reconcile with inventory and time sheet, than it is to manually change screens back and forth.
And as others have pointed out, a happy employees is usually more productive.
I'm more bothered by the fact that they came and took anything from the developer's desk. Yes, sure, the monitor belongs to the company. But once you've allocated a resource to a person, you don't just come take it. If the accountant really, really needed the monitor, you contact the developer first and ask him - "Hey, Joe, we have a crisis - Bob over in accounting doesn't have a monitor, and several reports are due by tomorrow for the SEC filing. Can he borrow your second monitor?" And if Joe says "No, I have a deadline to meet also." then you go out and buy Bob a monitor and be done with it.
Maybe I'm dense and missing something - are you seriously advocating for limiting the desktop real estate of software developers, or are you just trolling?
'Cause if you're trolling clue me in so I can take back all of the bad things I've thought about you.
Three 20" 1600x1200 monitors at home.
A 1920x1080 15" laptop flanked by 22" 1680x1050 display on either side at work (so effectively 3 monitors wide at work.)
Most of the time all three are being used to full capacity at work (at home not so much.)
Given that I like your resume (anybody that coded in Pascal is ok in my book) - work with me on this one. I honestly couldn't consider recommending a guy that would argue in public against giving a developer a second monitor, at a cost of maybe $150. If one of my developers is even one minute more productive per day, the break even point is less than three months - and I know I'm way more than 60 seconds more productive per day with my setup.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Ok, done!
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I could have as many monitors as I want, but I've developed a preference for virtual desktops instead. I mapped hotkeys to switching directly to 9 virtual desktops, then I developed a habit of using the hotkeys. That way, it's as if I have 9 monitors, not much desk space is consumed, I don't have to move the mouse very far, and I get all these benefits even on a plane. Pressing hotkeys really is as easy as turning my head.
My hotkeys are based on the mostly-unused Windows key. Windows-tab = show all desktops (using Compiz), windows-F1 = show desktop 1, etc.
I'm convinced there is some monster eating my tape measures and screwdrivers :\
and they shit power cables
Weather or not the company (or the developer) thinks the developer NEEDS an extra monitor is not the point. The fact that they have such an unprofessional, blatant disrespect for him or any other employee that they simply take equipment from them is a strong signal of a toxic work environment. The bare minimum of professional courtesy would have been to ask before taking. As a side note, if they can't pay $200 for a spare monitor; the ship is already sinking - get off the boat now!
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
There are two reasons for horizontally arranged eyeglasses.
First, people tend to look for things on the same plane that they are on. Most people don't pay attention to what is up or down. They pay attention to their horizontal plane, which would be where predators or attackers would normally come from. This is due to behavior training through their life. People tell their kids to look left and right before crossing the street. No one ever says "look up and down", which incidentally is what makes potholes at street curbs that much more entertaining.
It is a fairly simple behavior modification to extend their plane of perception to the vertical plane. It works out very well for law enforcement though, as people tend to not look up for helicopters following them. :)
The second is ... fashion. You can buy completely round glasses, which support correction around the full field of view. To remain somewhat fashionable, eyeglasses for vision correction are rarely made to cover the full field of view. This also makes it a bastard to play pool with glasses that are not cut to give enough field of view (been there, done that, bought new glasses after losing because I couldn't clearly focus on the whole table)
You can easily test for the first reason at many optometrists offices. They can (and will) test for "blind spots" in the field of view. If you look at the resulting graph, the area is round, not a horizontal oval or square. Well, unless you have serious eye problems.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You can't honestly say that you work on code that has functions that don't take up a significant amount of vertical space. If you do, you must really be enjoying your entry level work. When you grow out of that, you'll find that vertical space is wonderful to have.
I usually try to keep my code to 80 columns wide, and yes, I use short names. There is simply no reason to have a function named "this_function_sanitizes_some_variable_that another_function_could_not_handle_so_it_is_done_here() ". That's not to say I don't see it though. I end up looking at horrible code all the time.
BTW, I had an underscore between "that" and "another". Even Slashdot agrees, it's bad practice. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I read it on monitor #6 (of 6); because that's the only one on the system that's in portrait mode, and I like reading slashdot in portrait. :)
Monitors are like a lot of things; it depends on your style, what you're comfortable with. I like a lot of 'em, and I work efficiently that way. Someone else doesn't want to work that way, so what, doesn't affect me in the least.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You have the code scrolling in one monitor, you have the, say, website running in the other, you constantly test. It is a good method, and works.
Read radical news here
I've found three to be an optimal set. One wide, one long, and one "square". It makes it really easy to see testing windows in all configurations.
Two is nice because there are plenty of times when you want to see two things at once (code and testing window, remote server and local server, etc.)
Where are the 1600x1200 LED S-IPS business screens?
Amen! My second monitor at home is my old Hitachi 751 because I can't find an affordable ($250) LCD that will do 1600x1200. At work I'll probably wind up making some kind of stand so I can use my 22" in portrait mode.
Just junk food for thought...
In the early '80s I was using a 3290 when programming on an IBM S/370 running MVS. I had it configured for 4 terminals and used them all. (And, yes it was uphill in the snow both ways.)
The need for multiple screens has nothing to do with modern development. I've always craved additional screen real estate because moving my eyes was always quicker than moving windows.
Those 3290s were very expensive and I remember there were only 2 of us who could justify getting one on our desks.
Today, I use two 30" monitors at 2560x1600 each and typically use all the space available when doing development. I find it excruciating having to do much development on my laptop screen at 1920x1080 but, of course, can survive and be productive. I'm personally just a lot more productive with a lot of screen real estate.
Spoiled? I consider you deprived. I run six monitors, big ones, too.
The app I'm working on (DSLR photo processor) can take two (easily) with the image window on one monitor, and the tool palette and library windows on another. Then I have the source code / IDE on another, the Instruments suite of monitoring tools on another, the dev docs open on another and on the last, a web browser for hitting stack overflow or other online resources. In the space corners, I have CPU monitors, network monitors, chat windows open to the other team members, the system console log... My only regret is that I didn't pony up for the fourth display card so I could have eight monitors. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1) Yes.
2) We don't want special treatment. We are willing to accept that others could do their job more effectively if they had multiple monitors (after the developers pushed to get multiple monitors at my office, everyone else followed suit. This seems sane)
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
After ten years of two monitors I've gone for four and it's made another leap in friendliness.
In KDE, with 2x2 monitors you can:
Pop into System Settings | Window Behaviour | Titlebar Actions | Maximize Button for much tinkering.
Another useful thing is that my mouse pointer is about 14mm high so it's easy to see, well done KDE devs. Sadly when I remote into other machines it uses their local mouse pointer size
In practice I find I spread Eclipse over all four and web pages fill the left or the right, it's pretty useful for eBay listings, Slashdot comments etc.
Before you ask it's 4 x 50GBP monitors and a 50GBP quad-head video card.
Under Linux you can make each monitor a separate X-server, each having an independent set of workspaces (virtual desktops). This means that without moving windows you can easily switch between showing any combination of two sets of information: IDE and app, IDE and docs, terminal and browser, video and browser, etc.
I am currently coding. I have
The API information open.
Three text windows open.
A Browser open (True at the moment it is displaying slashdot)
That's 5 windows open where I would like to quickly shuffle information between them. I could use the Swap Pane keystroke, and the Arrange Windows to Tiles, but I find it's faster for me to "Glance"TM at the appropriate window or highlight and paste between them.
Work was nice enough to provide me with 2x 24" monitors to do this. They did offer me a third, but after 2 days, I gave that back. There is, surprisingly such a thing as too much screen real estate.)
For status information I have always found an alert dashboard that pops up with a healthy red glow when something goes wrong very useful. Especially if the whole office can see it. (There is nothing like manager walking in to Mission Control saying "I cant get my servic... Oh... What's happening?" when they see a board of all red flashy things.)
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
This is useful for looking at close up stuff if you're nearsighted (it's equivalent to magnifying the image from what it would be), and also for conveying disbelief that someone made a dumb comment or asked a question whose answer should be obvious. This withering facial expression is only available to the bespectacled.
It certainly seems like, at least for English text (and anything else ltr or rtl instead of vertical), the optimal size for a column is relatively narrow. You want it to be wide enough that you don't have to scroll too much, but multiple studies have shown that it's easier to read a narrow column than a wide column.
I tend to like using just a little more than half of a single monitor for my web browser. Nice balance between fullscreen (unreadable) and narrow enough that crappy layouts start to scroll.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
With 24" LED/LCD screens so cheap now, it's a great time to upgrade to dual 24" screens at $200 each. I just got a second 24" to complement my previous one that I've had for a year now.
As for the 10 points, I don't know if I qualify as I don't have a "secondary display", they're both equals. "Secondary" implies that one is subordinate to the other, but if they're identical, this wouldn't apply.
That depends how your space is constrained. When my father got his first HDTV, he got one which was at least as tall as his old one, but ended up cutting away chunks of the cabinet it was in to make room for the sides.
After all, walls tend to be wider than they are tall.
I also don't mind the phenomenon with laptops, either -- in this case, portability matters, and my laptop is significantly easier to deal with being wider and shorter than it would be if it was closer to a square.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Aside from the "testing windows in all configurations" possibility (I'm not often a GUI programmer), it's definitely appealing to think that I could watch 4:3 or 16:9 movies fullscreen. Or, more practically (for work, anyway), I could put docs on the vertical screen, an editor (or several) on the square screen, and terminals/IM/other crap on the widescreen -- though I'm not sure what would be perfectly optimal, I definitely like the idea of a browser/docs/etc on the vertical screen.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In my previous job, a 1920x1200 24" (I brought in my own) plus the original crappy 17" thing they gave me was fine. I was doing a lot of PHP, and I mostly used the small monitor for email and a browser and had my IDE taking up most of the big screen.
Now that I'm doing a bunch of stuff with Visual Studio at my new job, that's not enough Screen Real Estate - I really need to get a third monitor in. I've regularly got two (and often three) instances of VS open, plus email, IM, and a couple browser windows and my company's help documentation. If I had 4 24" 1920x1200 monitors hooked up, I would probably be thinking that I could use "just one more".
The Digital Sorceress
Let me tell you, as an accountant I warmly applaud this fine moment of payback.
My argument is not against giving developers more real estate. I don't care one way or the other for myself. I've had multiple monitors, and unless I have a VM or remote desktop session, I can take them or leave them.
No, my argument is against stupidly designed web pages and horribly bad application software that simply doesn't work properly unless it's taking up your whole screen. Designing stuff that way is incredibly dumb, and the UI designers who do it should be forced to use a single 14" 800x600 monitor with their application until they realize the error of their ways.
I don't use application software like that. It's one of the many reasons I despise Eclipse.
Once stupid UI designers realize that most developers have multiple monitors, next thing you know they'll be designing programs that don't really work well unless you have two screens.
I would rather have one monitor that was 4000x2000 and 30" than two any day.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
You'd be surprised how many companies have crappy management, and refuse to buy newer equipment for their engineers. As for the $100k thing, that's irrelevant, as salaries come out of a different pool of money than equipment, and in fact, new monitors are too expensive because they're too cheap. Let me explain: a monitor only costs $200 or so. That's not big enough to be a capital expense, so it has to come out of discretionary spending (both of which are entirely separate from salaries). High discretionary spending looks bad, so when things are a little tight, managers always cut discretionary spending to the bone.
Does this really make any sense? No. But that's how modern corporations work. I've worked at a couple different companies now that were just like this: decent salaries but dirt-cheap on equipment (I usually had to scrounge or steal equipment from other places in the company). Not surprisingly, one of them (with ~20,000 employes) isn't doing too hot as their private equity owner tries to squeeze all the cash out of them that they can, and the other one (~1800 employees) just got purchased by their larger competitor and is being split up and sold off.
Depends a bit on what you are working on, but i find one monitor for ssh terminals, editor windows and/or debuggers, one monitor for the client interface and sometimes one for the server interface, makes me more productive than juggling one monitor back and forth with a kvm switch.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
I guess for me that depends on which you call your other monitor. I'm watching a film on my other. ;-)
When I bought my current gear, I pondered much over whether to get one Apple 30" screen or two 23" ones - both coming in at the same price. I went for two. I decided the two would give me some redundancy, and it appeared easier on my eyes during tests.
A.
Never be afraid to ask. Wisdom must be gathered before it can be given.
http://www.motivationalmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/john-lennon.jpg
You can't honestly say that you work on code that has functions that don't take up a significant amount of vertical space. If you do, you must really be enjoying your entry level work. When you grow out of that, you'll find that vertical space is wonderful to have.
I've worked on code that had enormously long and complex functions. Whenever possible (and I push extremely hard on this, no "We don't have time for that." with me, if you don't have time for that, you certainly don't have the time for everybody to maintain it) I refactor the code into smaller functions, and usually remove a lot of bugs in the process.
While I don't really lack for vertical space on my setup (I generally have 50-60 lines on-screen) having a limitation helps keep me honest when writing code.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
And if the app I'm working on needs to be full-screen in order to work reasonably, there's something wrong with the app and its UI needs to be redesigned.
So you never wrote a media player with a full-screen option or a game then?
I drink to make other people interesting!
I don't find it that useful -- I often will bring my laptop somewhere and do some hacking, and I don't find it terribly unpleasant.
But I definitely agree with GP. No matter how small a productivity boost, if the developers love them that much, and they're that cheap, do it. It's like 1 gig of RAM vs 4 (or 4 vs 16 if you're doing anything with Oracle) -- yeah, I could probably do most of what I do now in 1 gig of RAM (less, if I tweaked my machine more aggressively), but even at Apple's worst prices, the upgrade to 4 is easily worth it just to make me happy.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It may well be ego and entitlement, but it's also comfort and (arguably) productivity.
And it's an incredibly minor expense to make your developers happy. How much do monitors cost these days? Mine cost something like $500, and it's a 24" 1920x1200. You're going to spend, what, at least $40,000/year on a developer, and you're not willing to spend $500 once to make them happy? That's a red flag for me.
Put another way: Am I actually more productive or even measurably more comfortable in a nice office chair than a folding chair? Probably not -- in fact, if I'm coding, I'm probably not going to notice or care unless it's dramatically uncomfortable. But if I come for an interview and your developers are sitting in folding chairs, I'm probably not coming back.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I got used to coding on widescreen displays. It's fine. Sure, 4:3 1200px high displays basically aren't made anymore. The upside is that 16:10 1200px high displays are widely available and affordable. I don't see it as losing vertical space but as gaining horizontal space. 1920 horizontal pixels mean that I can put two 1200px tall windows side-by-side. Or, if you've got dual 24" screens, one enormous 1920x1200 for something like an IDE on the main screen and two tall windows side by side on the other. Splitting the 1920 in 1/3 + 2/3 is also very nice, as 2/3s is just wide enough for a useful browser window.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
It can handle 60, it just pulls down to 48 or 41, depending on revision. (Mine, 48.)
I don't get that 100 points (I rarely use my T221), but do I get 50 points for reading it on a IDTech IAQX10N 15.0" 2048x1536 panel? It can't handle 60 either, but it can do 50.
My laptop has 1920x1200, and it's about a 15". Expensive, and not everyone can read it that small, but it works well for me.
Oh, and I have a second 1920x1200 monitor that I plug into it. I think I've just about hit my limit in terms of how much screen space makes a difference, but it does make a difference and I do notice.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
After about 25 years of coding I can safely say that multiple large monitors will just clutter up your desk and strain your neck and eyes (well YMMV but it's likely). Get one 27" or 30" display and learn to use it. If you cannot get a larger display than 24" or so, perhaps a second one is warranted (you don't need to turn your head / eyes much to look at it). For me, a Dell 27" with 2560x1440 pixels at slightly more than arm's length is almost too wide already to look at for 12+ hours and I have 40-50 browser, MUA, putty, editor windows open usually without any problems (I hate the tabs paradigm in browsers). I also feel that it's healthier for the eyes if they can actually focus at something at a different distance to the left and right of the monitor if you let them wander while thinking, rather than at another display ...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Why? Well of course nobody is actually focusing on them all at the same time, but having a screen immediately available to glance over at does add to productivity instead of shuffling windows every half-minute or so. The situation which comes into mind right off is it is really nice to have a split code/design view of a web page on one screen while the code-behind is on a second. The third screen? A web browser rendering the page/code certainly comes to mind. Fourth screen? It certainly is nice to have a full-screen email session open. Then, I can respond to issues and day-to-day stuff without again having to shuffle windows to check...
Management:We're taking one of your monitors.
Me: Ok, as long as you agree never to ask me to start a new task before I've finished the previous one, I'm cool with that.
Oh, and as long as you don't mind me taking extra time and building in risk by guessing at things all the time and doing a lot of trial and error instead of glancing at TFM on the other screen.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Those are two exceptions to the rule. And no, I haven't worked on either.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor?
Yes. Do accountants? Maybe. Sometimes. Developers? Yes, absolutely, especially when they have already adjusted their work habits to working with two.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
If you're paying someone high five to low six figures to write code and they want a $120 monitor, give them the fucking monitor. Christ. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish.
I rarely coded during my IT career but, when I did, I hooked up TWO additional monitors. Code in the middle, debugger on the left, reference material on the right. (Do kids still use debuggers these days?) When I was done with the coding, the extra monitors went back in the closet because those CRTs took up a lot of space.
to be simple two 1280x1024 monitors compared to one 2560x2048 display.
The two monitors have HALF the total resolution of the large monitor.
$1,000 for double the screen real estate you get for $400 is not a bad deal at all.
I actually have one 2560x1600 30" monitor with a 1200x1600 20" monitor on either side, rotated to portrait perspective. That essentially gives me one 4960x1600 desktop.
Not only do I save a ton of time not having to switch back and forth between windows, I save a ton of time not even having to scroll up/down.
paintball
It depends on the individual, sure, but it also depends on the task. When I'm reading at home, like now, I'm using one monitor. I've got the other up with a terminal in it, but it's just sitting there doing nothing. I do flip over to it to do things from time to time, but Alt+Tab in my WM is fine for that. It's good enough for the DVD from time to time and it's good enough for the rare game.
Work is a different story. When I'm working on a program, my communications apps go in my little monitor (19" I think) and my code goes in the 22" display. The thing is that the 22" display is a very tall (rotated 90 degrees) display and that is critical to my productivity. Nothing I can do there can't be done in a regular single display, but when I'm working on debugging code, being able to see a very large part of the code as I work on it is essential. I can go from procedure to procedure and back to the original call without having to find my place each time. For me personally, the time it takes to find my place again is a huge distraction, where in the tall display, I'm just flicking my eyes from A to B and back to A and then to C and then back to B again with a smooth train of thought. If I have to break up that train of thought to find my place each time, it really slows me down. Being able to keep my communications up in another monitor allows me to know when something is incoming that is important enough to break from the task at hand, and when it isn't, allow me to continue without reorienting myself on the project at hand.
I suspect that there is a correlation between complexity and retention that determines how useful a second display is to someone. Simple tasks take very little screen space for me because I can retain everything I need to know and respond accordingly. Complex tasks require more screen space and greater division of processes so that I can break the parts into manageable tasks without losing track of other parallel tasks. There is a diminishing return on screen space and divisibility depending on the task as well; some tasks do not get easier with multiple screens. It is almost never the case that responding to email is improved beyond two windows. Almost every email I respond to needs at most a couple paragraphs of response and a couple of original content in order to be as efficient as possible. If my primary job were to respond to technical questions, a single 19" monitor would be all I could reasonably take advantage of.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
*chuckle* If you can get management to spring for extra monitors, more power to you. I still think any such need is generally a result of bad UI design and status seeking. I find it hilarious that people open up full screen terminal windows. How ridiculous can you get? Oh, there's a maximize button there, I must press it. My will is weak!
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
We all know what a second monitor means to the developer-at-large. We all know as well that a second monitor is most often not a need, but a desire.
What we may not be considering is the type of developer the question is posited for, and what that developer's optimal screen real-estate needs are.
If you are involved in the purchasing of computer hardware for your developers and are looking to get a jump on what a new developer on your team might need, I humbly submit the following guidelines:
The Mac developer needs two monitors. One monitor to run XCode, Mono and Eclipse (all at the same time) - the other to run the iPhone simulator to full effect (the iPad, just being a really big iPhone anyway).
The Linux developer needs, at a bare minimum, two monitors. One to run EMACS, the other to run Firefox (or alternately Opera) pointing to http://slashdot.org./ Possibly a third if sourcing to Subversion.
The Windows developer needs only one monitor. It will be used in full displaying IE9 pointed at Facebook, Fox news, some cute "LOL cats" website with flashing "you are the 1 millionth visitor" and some pr0n tabbed out and ready for fast switching. It doesn't have to be really big either as none of the site form-factors are really above 1024x768 pixels.
I hope this helps.
One where the IDE/coding work is being done... :)
And the second one to google to your coding issue and/or finding sample code you can build on
Well that at least applies to a chunk of "web developers" out there....
I wrote about my preferred dual-monitor setup a while back as a guest editorial at: http://onyourdesktop.blogspot.com/2007/07/david-mertz.html
That's still pretty much what I like. I wish the screenshot there was from the work machine I describe in the article, with dual 30" screens. Sadly, I haven't had such nice desktop real estate elsewhere (neither at home nor other workplaces). But what I do typically work with in my own office space nowadays (I'm a consultant, so it's really my own space) is still two screens, though not identical in dimension. I use a (company provided) laptop hooked up to an external 24" monitor (1920x1200--those widescreen ones with only 1080 vertical pixels feel like they rob me of important vertical space). On this main consulting setup I keep a pretty fixed set of apps open... sadly, the work laptop is Windows 7, and I can't choose otherwise. But my setup hides most negatives of that OS.
To the left, on the laptop screen, everything maximized:
* Email client (usually in front)
* Version control GUI
To the right, on the external screen:
* Code editor (jEdit) maximized. This allows two full panes of code, and one
slightly smaller one for file navigation, project manager, search results, etc
(my editor tabs between different functions in the utility pane). Each code
pane is about 85x65 in a reasonably large font. My editor also lets me hide
all the frame elements, title bar, etc, which removes the look of Windows and
gives me a couple extra rows of code.
* Web browser, full vertical, but only about half the total screen with. Lots of tabs
* Two side-by-side SSH sessions, each one about 90x70 characters. These connect
to the real machines where I do work. Often I run vim in these session to edit
code on the remote machines, but also to run test commands, launch compilation,
etc.
* Sometimes a chat window or two that use the full monitor height.
* Sometimes a PDF viewer or two, usually maximized and two-page display
Obviously, I have to switch focus sometimes on the right (external) monitor. But most times I am just looking at the two large SSH windows. It's a bit disjunctive what I edit in my local text editor versus what I edit in my two "panes" of vim on the SSH terminals; but either way I can see a similar two full screens of code to compare visually, which is really useful (e.g. one I use to look at the code of the supporting library while in the other pane I write the code that calls into it; or I am working on two related scripts and seeing both next to each other helps synchronize changes).
Buy Text Processing in Python
If you RTFA you will know that this company is showing signs of going down hill. Within the context of what TFA said(and admittedly some assumptions by me) I would be looking at a exit strategies rather than complaining about losing my monitor. There are some situations where TFA's facts made sense but even then the company would be recovering from mismanagement or things are looking bad for that management group.
And I'm the CEO, so it's not about money. (A lot of my staff have two monitors, or more -- and they get all they want; it's ridiculous to discuss about the low prices that are involved here in our line of business.)
The real difference: At my work place, I have a *real* big one of the old 24" 4:3 monitors. When this one dies, with this crap of 16:9 monitors en vogue now, I'll have to get two. I don't look video at work; I don't need widescreen. Give me lots of vertical space, and I'm much more happy. But the hardware industry is driven by consumer market today, no hope to get better. (Don't make me start about that insane disk companies... ;-)
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
The thing you need to realize is that it's not about needing anything. This is no different from taking an Emacs user and forcing them to use vim or pico. They're used to working in a certain way, and changing that on them is a huge distraction, because now they have to think about the environment instead of the engineering problem. Maybe after a while, they'd get used to a change, but they came to rely on something (a particular editor, OS, office chair, or monitor arrangement) probably because it helped them function more effectively. Thus, if you change it, it's not just a distraction, but it's also an impedement to their workflow.
Some people write huge amounts of code and then only compile occasionally. They'll do well with a slower computer. Then there are developers that recompile every five seconds, because they like to tweak and compile and tweak and compile. They actually NEED a much faster computer, because their productivity is siginificantly affected by compile time. (Amdahl's law for coders!) Rather than force everyone into a cookie-cutter way of doing things, employers should adapt to what makes their employees most efficient.
Why so stingy that you can't give this guy a second monitor? Is it that or lay people off? Why are you fucking around in his office in the first place? Yes, the company owns the office, but people need a place to get comfortable, where things are familiar. IMHO, entering into someone else's workspace without permission is incredibly rude. If you're in there, you better be dropping off a package and don't even think about moving anything around.
It's like when you have 100 tabs open in your web browser, and, besides slashdot, they're all relevant to your work, and they took a lot of googling to find. However, they're relevance is transient, so you didn't bother to bookmark them. Then while you're out at lunch, the sysadmin decides to update some software on your computer, and when you come back, your windows are closed and your history is cleared, and you have to waste hours finding all this crap again.
I guess it should come as no surprise to me that managers fail to empathize with their employees or recognize that everyone prefers to operate in different ways.
"Do developers really need a second monitor?" is SOOOO totally the wrong question.
Web designers only need this if it's the baseline monitor that the users are forced to use. We had someone argue that they needed a second screen to 'see what the users see' and then upped it to a 24'' when the users are stuck on 17. The rest of us can't use their 'masterpiece.'
A lot of the bloat, and probably a fair amount of the usability problems we see today are there because developers have the latest and greatest computer systems with multi-gigs of RAM, terabytes of disk space, and vast amounts of on-screen real estate. Hence their work products are best run on the latest and greatest computer systems with multi-gigs of RAM, terabytes of disk space, and vast amounts of on-screen real estate. Give'em a 1280x1024 monitor, a gig of RAM and 250gigs of HDD and tell'em to make their code run, and run well, on that system. That way the rest of us can actually use what they write.
It's economies of scale, since they're making hordes of 1080p LCD panels, they became cheaper than the 1200 ones. Companies thought: "Hey lets just use the same basic panels for PC and HDTV displays!"
I would also surmise that more people use their displays for watching widescreen content, than use it for an IDE. They don't miss those 120 pixels.
...but I'm not going to read the other 400 comments.
It would decrease my productivity by, like, 92%, but has anyone considered NO monitors? Seriously, 0 for IDE, 0 for logs, and zero for debugging. No feedback whatsoever! let's do it! The zero monitor movement starts here!
Not just screen real estate, but also clear separation of tasks/tools.
Two monitors with less pixels and less height than a single large monitor for sure.
I'd definitely take a 17inch and 15inch combo over a 1600 by 1200
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
. But I'm an odd duck and a bit of an old-school Unix geek.
Snowflake alert.
XML causes global warming.
It is a very sad state of affairs. You probably can image how much time/effort it took me to get a 30 Euro headset. I dare not calculate the true cost of that requisition.
What the parent here is trying to say is that even the first monitor is a crutch of the weak-minded.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, but sadly I don't own a telegraph machine.
After reading the posts in this thread about why people need multiple monitors, it's obvious to me that virtual desktops would work just as well or better for most cases. You can switch from one virtual desktop to another nearly as fast as your eyes can move from one monitor to another except your eyes don't need to move. Not to mention the wasted desk space, equipment and electricity.
I always keep 4 desktops and group my related tasks. Currently I have my work related stuff on one, a personal project on another and Slashdot on a third (just kidding. Slashdot is on the first). Someone will probably come along and reply to this with a legitimate use of multiple monitors, and they exist, but I still assert that most cases could be facilitated using virtual desktops. And think about this. I can take "4 monitors" with me to a library or coffee shop without any more weight or size than a laptop. So if you MUST have multiple monitors to work, you're stuck at the location where the monitors are.
Need? No. Appreciate? Yes. Given they cost so little it seems like a fairly cost-effective perk to offer your developers. Especially since you can probably recoup the cost by compensating them with less actual cash. And if it makes them more productive to boot then that's icing on the cake.
A single widescreen monitor gets you two documents, and frequently not the entire page at once, so you end up wasting a lot of time and energy switching between windows. And while it doesn't seem like it should be a big effort to remember a short piece of information you just looked at, if you're trying to compare two lines of code but can't just flick your eyes back and forth and instead have to constantly memorize one, switch windows, oh wait not that window, switch again, yeah that's the one, where was I, there's the spot I'm comparing... wait, was the number in the original a 9 or an 8? Better go back and check... You end up wasting a lot of time.
I see you are not required to do API programming in Java...
Look at the function names in the JDBC (or UI barf) parts of the Java libraries. Sometimes you have to call them, or maybe even extend them...
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
That's why I'm still on CRT. Trinatrons go on ebay for $1 while an LCD that can do 1600x1200 (or anything that can do 1200 or more high) is over $1000.
When I could code with Emacs and man in a terminal window, one monitor would do. But with say .Net and Visual Studio? No way. I need one monitor for Visual Studio itself, because the toolbars and necessary panes take up enough room that I need it maximized to get enough code visible to have a feel for context. And then the other monitor I need for documentation and reference windows, IM windows, e-mail, terminal windows, consoles for servers, all the miscellany that I need during development that aren't the IDE itself. I can work with one monitor, but it's a lot slower because the stuff that'd go on the second monitor is stuff I need to look at while I'm working in the IDE. If I can't see both at once, I have to keep switching and remembering what I was looking before the switch.
And honestly, is 2 monitors really that expensive for a business? As a private individual I can afford a pair of good widescreen monitors. I can probably afford an all-around more powerful system than businesses are deploying. And I don't get to depreciate the stuff like a business does.
Some people, developers or not, work better with multiple monitors; others don't need it.
That aside. Why on earth would someone take a monitor from someone else's desk without asking?? Not really fire-able, but sounds like grounds for disciplinary action for someone in the accounting department...
Sometimes the guys with the asset list in account sections think it is perfectly reasonable to lift what they need from another area without going through the departments that paid for the stuff - in their eyes accounts own everything.
I'm lucky I don't deal with that now, but previously had to deal with account bastards so pettily evil that one demanded I rush out and buy a specific expensive printer for him with my own cash and then demanded afterwards three competing quotes and a written justification of that model. After that an eight week wait for reimbursement (processed by that same person in accounts) was rubbing salt in the wounds considering at the time I was still waiting for my first paycheck (also delayed) after a period of unemployment. It's low grade petty evil and the only way to deal with it is to make them play by their own rules - take the screen back for the purpose it was purchased for and send a complaint up the tree.
When departments are caught actively stealing assets from others instead of asking permission they need to be stopped because you don't know what they are stealing without getting caught. For example finding out a projector has been stolen by another department and taken to an office interstate instead of booked out can cause a lot of wasted time and money before a presentation. It also changes the work flow where you have to ensure that you actually have the equipment some time before you need it and can not assume it's still there because you had it yesterday.
With the screen it's not really an issue about whether the thing was needed or not because nobody asked before that tool in the workplace was stolen. There's no point pretending it is anything other than theft. I think it's a sign of disfunction in the workplace that it appears that the theif is asking for the previous user to justify why they had it in the first place.
If I came to work and someone had stolen something off my desk I would be mad. If I found out it was management and they had taken it because they saw it as a resource they could use better elsewhere I would quit.
Personal workspace items given to a user shouldn't be taken back without their consent. It's no different if they stole someones stapler or pens. Dual or triple monitors might be seen as a luxury still, but they're cheap now. If the company can't afford to pay $100 for the accounting department to pick up a new monitor then they don't need you. They're either underpaying you or just don't give a damn about you as an employee or a human being.
When you introduce your own gear into such an environment it gets stolen by other departments as well unless you have something which they won't want or is too hard to move. A lot of stuff has attachment points for laptop locks or can be secured with wire rope and padlock - but otherwise I'd say don't bring anything you don't mind losing into a workplace where things are already being stolen. They didn't ask and it didn't come out of their budget so it is theft and they are unlikely to stop at doing the same if it's something you've paid for out of your own pocket.
Why is this scored -1? Trolls should not be allowed mod points.
Rocket Surgeon.
Where 5 monitors is the bare minimum.
But if you want me to check email more than once every 3 hours, better give me a physical place to quarantine that mental noise. Then I'll glance at it every 10-20 minutes between thoughts and take a break to respond to anything important. (important being what I define to be important, not what the PM defines to be important)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I have been running a dual monitor setup at work for close to 10 years now, first with analog CRT's (big and heavy) and now widescreen LCD's. I constantly use both even though I am not a developer. Being able to review documents while typing notes into an email, comparing two documents side-by-side or just multi-tasking really requires the space. I currently run two 22" monitors at 1680x1050 (each). I feel this is a good compromise of size vs. cost, and I know I am more productive.
If I could consolidate onto one large monitor, like a 30", it would be nicer in some respects, but the cost is prohibitive compared to 2 smaller (or rather mid-sized) monitors in dual-screen mode. The additional screen space on a 30" is marginal, but getting rid of the bezel in the middle would be an improvement and also the higher resolution of the 30" LCD. Unfortunately, due to manufacturing economics of LCD panels, the cost of a single large LCD is unlikely to approach 2 smaller ones anytime in the near future.
I totally agree with many of the posts; if your company won't pay the tiny cost of a 2nd monitor to make you more productive and content at doing your job, you are working for the wrong company. I would go so far as to buy my own second monitor to use at work, while bringing my resume up to date and looking for a new company to work for.
> If you need multiple monitors to write code productively, you aren't writing serious code.
You're an idiot. Some of us write _graphic_ / game programs and/or write kernel code. The ability to debug/run your game/kernel full-screen on one monitor, whilst debugging / viewing code on the other is extremely tedious if you only have one monitor.
Simple calculation: A monitors costs, what, $250? And now consider that it might save the developer just one or two minutes each day that he'd otherwise spend on switching between windows, resizing them, getting reoriented, etc. The extra monitor will pay for itself in a few months.
Every time I add another monitor, I think I should have done it ages ago...
Currently I have 3x24" in portrait, but I'm considering integrating another into the desk(under the keyboardish), and two mini projectors for the walls(its a corner desk, so half a C.A.V.E.). And when the next gen of high-dpi and thin-bezel panels are out(cost effective), I'll upgrade the 24"s.
Also, if your talking productivity, also add a wacom, to your list; 1:1 mapping of your displays means no-more looking for the cursor, no picking up the mouse, and if you ever have to do graphics(as well as code), it's an invaluable tool.
The only thing that's really missing from my setup(i.e. not available yet), is a wireless tablet screen(with full hardware graphic acceleration). Like a Wacom Cintiq but wireless; ideally a 12-14UX wireless, with more rez.
I want to be able to take my desktop to meeting, the couch, etc...
And while on the subject, a HUD(I'll need glasses someday) is probable inevitable too!
A programmer who insists on having two monitors is like an executive insisting on a 6-drawer desk or a corner office. Of course two monitors aren't necessary, what do you think Alt-Tab is for?
But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?
I can understand why you would react strongly to the way in which this happened - apparently without consultation or warning. Simple courtesy requires that you go and talk to people before you do this kind of things.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to work effectively on limited resources; I have two huge screens at work, but when I work from home, I have one small screen. In Linux you benefit from multiple desktops, and when I have to work on a serial terminal, which I still do sometimes, I use 'screen', as program that gives you the same in character mode.
So, no, you don't need it, strictly speaking, but management should not treat their workers as non-entities. It is a matter of mutual respect - in general you only get as much respect at you are willing to give.
What really surprises me is that in my office, most people have a docked laptop with an external monitor, and don't choose to run both displays as a dual monitor setup. It's like a free dual monitor setup for them, and they ignore it and stick to a single monitor!
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Same for me, i don't get much benefit from multiple monitors and would much rather have a single high resolution one, and virtual desktops are an absolute necessity i couldn't live without.
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The company can afford to give free car washes. But they can't afford to provide their employees with the tools to get their job done?
Heh, was gonna post pretty much the same, but you beat me to it.
Working on a laptop, so primary is smaller than secondary - hence, primary holds browser, secondary holds assload of terminals.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
I found it pretty essential in web development. One screen for code, the other for docs and results. Browser permanently open on php.net, and the webpage I'm developing.
Most IDEs are designed to be used in full screen. If you reduce the window size, various toolbars, menus and extras remain in place while the editor area shrinks... to ridiculously useless size. You just need one full screen for it. And if you're to copy-paste stuff into it, a second monitor is a great boon.
Also, theoretically, increasing resolution would help. Only theoretically though. The screen isn't getting bigger, it's the content that is getting smaller. And my eyes are not getting any younger. (still, a HUGE screen in a very high resolution might work.)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I suggest it is more a comment on his value to the company than a denial of a needed asset to a producing employee. Can anyone imagine a truly productive coder being denied anything as unimportant as a second monitor? Time to start looking for a new job.
E Proelio Veritas.
You can just put widescreen monitor in portrait orientation instead of landscape. I used to have one of my monitors oriented this way to read technical PDFs while I coded on the other screen, but it turns out LCD screens are designed to have a good viewing angle horizontally, and not vertically. However, I still use the portrait orientation on occasion, as it provides a much more comfortable way of reading ebooks
"It was an agonizing moment..."
Talk about the hyperbole. I know I'm old and all that stuff, but 'agonizing?' Crickey, man, have you even seen a 7 inch green monotone screen in your life? Agonizing is paying $500 for 1MB of RAM.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
And I bet that software was a lot more expensive to write than the equivalent software today.
What was considered 'productive' in the 70s and 80s would be seen as hideously unproductive today.
They were funnier back in the day. If they actually made them sound like department names it would help.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Of our small team (6) of coders, 4 have dual monitors, 2 don't. By my estimation that's equivalent to saying that 66.666666666666666666666666667% of our coders prefer dentists who chew gum.
Shit like this always pisses me off. Do the math. Your paying your developer like 75k+. A second monitor costs 200$... and if it is on lease, over 4 years, so like 50$ a year. So if you get 1% more productivity, it was probably the best investment you made that day other than putting pants on. Hell even if it makes the developer slightly happy, it was worth it. Stop being a bunch of penny pincher douchbags. I understand cutting costs, but at a certain point what is being done will only have negative effect.
There are tons of GUI 'Development' tools that clutter your screen with scroll bars and buttons and lists that take forever to re-draw themselves that probably require a hugeass monitor to use much. Ech.
But for real coding, one monitor is fine. Your code should be 80 columns wide, and if you're using multiple desktops on *nix or VirtuaWin for windows, then when someone calls, you can switch quickly to a new desktop, and then switch back to what you were doing easily enough using only one monitor.
Probably much of the whining is from people not using multiple desktops.
...
/. without stile sheets is more like the old /.
I would not look at it any other way.
Required? No, I avoid it like the plague.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
But it takes a true master in self control to refrain from answering one.
Sadly, I'm weak.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is very important, actually. I run 2 monitors and 4 Virtual Desktops, giving me 8 desktops. I usually keep 1 as a general browser, and the monitor next to it an extra browser to most frequently used pages. On the next VD, I keep two remote desktops open. On another VD, I keep folders open to all my major destinations... a couple server shares, a couple local folders, and a couple user folders. I keep the last VD free for quickly ctrl-alt-shift moving "important" windows I want to keep.
I wouldn't add any more VDs, but I'd like a 3 monitor setup again like I had years ago, and then I could not change VD as often.
The POINT of a setup like this, is that you like a specific setup. Even non-IT office workers often want their task bar looking the same way. If you close down their email client, they will literally close everything else down just to get the email client on the left side of their task bar.
It's a waste of time to go looking around for what you want. Where you put icons, shortcuts, windows, etc. is saves thousands of hours a year for workers.
I8-D
The thing about working in stone is that if forces you to think through your code before you commit it to stone. No more throwing junk code at the complier. It results in much high quality code, at some expense to productivity.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Looks like they start at about $260, plus shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=20&Description=&Type=&N=100007617&IsNodeId=1&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A9240&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A9242&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A57803&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A9238&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A25153
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
My last job I had two monitors. I was testing code written to run on a UNIX box from my Windows PC. I could bring up the GUI for the test platform and access all my other Windows apps. I could also open terminals on the UNIX box. Definitely a necessity for that job.
I understand how it was easy to misinterpret what I meant by "serious". It's not to say that the programmers themselves back then were unskilled, tasked as they were with such primitive tools. By serious code, I mean anything that requires interactive debugging of the application in use.
Minimally, you should also consider the paper savings of not having to print out reams of paper for documentation. Such documents are a second monitor of sorts. Could you write serious code without any reference material at all? If your references were jammed onto your programming screen, how might that affect your productivity?
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Well since you are nothing but a mindless troll I should ignore you but I just can't. A projector would a real problem because of space. But if you could provide a 50" 300DPI display yes even that would be useful for documentation That would be a great to add to a three monitor setup with one monitor to handle debugging and one that is for running the app you are testing.
So yes even that much could be useful if it would work. The thing is that projectors are expensive, space is expensive, and monitors are cheap.
You can by three 22" HD monitors for the price of a single projector. So go crawl back under your rock and stop trying to harras your betters.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There are tons of GUI 'Development' tools that clutter your screen with scroll bars and buttons and lists that take forever to re-draw themselves that probably require a hugeass monitor to use much. Ech.
But for real coding, one monitor is fine. Your code should be 80 columns wide, and if you're using multiple desktops on *nix or VirtuaWin for windows, then when someone calls, you can switch quickly to a new desktop, and then switch back to what you were doing easily enough using only one monitor.
Probably much of the whining is from people not using multiple desktops.
I develop with Vim on a Linux box with two monitors, and I will argue your point. Virtual desktops aren't anything the same as another physical monitor. You don't increase desktop space with virtual desktops, you only add organization power. I notice a huge difference when I come home from work and start some other development project on my laptop on the couch (where I don't have a second monitor). It's absolutely painful, and it slows me down considerably.
Either way, they actually did studies on this (like TFA points out) and it's been proven to increase productivity by a very significant degree.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Umm, no? Having the raw HTML source open in one monitor with your browser(s) opened to view it on the other monitor to quickly make a change, save, and refresh in the browser(s) is incredibly useful.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I actually prefer one monitor. I have many times made an actual concerted effort to go two monitors, but each time I just find the hassle is more than the worth, I end up spending more time shifting windows around and what-not, than actually using the second. I work so much faster just using alt+tab. Each to his own I suppose.
If you can do all your coding on one monitor without any productivity loss, you aren't writing serious code.
Uh yeah right. Please. Some of us can actually hold enough of the code that's not currently visible in our minds.
Spending money on a new monitor increases performance, and the increase is often (or sometimes, or never, I'm not arguing this here) worth the extra cost.
The parent was trying to say that using MS Office also increases performance when compared to OO.org and others, and this increase is also usually worth the cost. However, proprietary software usually uses proprietary formats, which lower performance when cooperating with other departments/companies/public. So there is a point to /. economics, and spending extra for proprietary software is not always the same as buying a new monitor.
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What really surprises me is that in my office, most people have a docked laptop with an external monitor, and don't choose to run both displays as a dual monitor setup. It's like a free dual monitor setup for them, and they ignore it and stick to a single monitor!
That's me. The laptop is in an awkward place, my desk is small, and I want plenty of room for the keyboard and for sketching on paper. Besides, I already flip between virtual desktops in two levels (four in Windows, and four in the VNC session which occupies one of the Windows ones.)
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Does a developer need a second monitor... hmm.... I don't know! Here's a better question. Does your executive team care how quickly your software team gets their projects done, Mr. Project Manager? Does your executive team care about the quality of the apps coming out of your software group? Here's what I know as a developer. When you're coding, debugging, testing, whatever, having a second monitor ( or alternatively, one large (30" or more), high resolution monitor really helps a ton. Toggling back and forth between windows and scrolling back and forth and up and down isn't just tedious, it's error prone and time consuming. Do we "need" a second monitor? I mean the list of stuff we really "need" in order accomplish something usually ends up being a small list. I guess I don't "need" a chainsaw to cut down a tree, I could just use an ax. But after an analysis of ax vs saw, I think to myself, two hours of of hard labor, blistered hands and sore shoulders vs. ten minutes and go have a beer? I guess, I'm gonna go with the chainsaw. And before you ask.... yeah, I think larger screen space does increase productivity that much, given an appropriately eager and willing devleoper.
As many have pointed out a second monitor is a cheap way of keeping a dev happy and I'd not argue with it. Where it costs me is time for my admins with the extra set up required for a non standard system. To discourage this anyone wanting a non standard desktop gets to pay the extra for it. This puts off the majority of people as they cannot make a cogent case for why they need it. Especially when I tell their supervisor about virtual desktops.
About the only people who do actually get a dual monitor system are the developers.
Don't get me started on the quad monitor systems!
UNIX: 'cuz you can tattoo it on your knuckles!
So do "developers" need a second monitor? Probably not.
No, probably not... unless they run a debugger on their code, or read documentation, or want to compare two different source files to one another, etc.
Look, monitors cost ~$200 once. Programmers cost ~$80,000/year. Just buy the second monitor.
If he needs or even wants it it is a bargain at $200+a $200 card to drive it.
Remember the UPS guy gets two mirrors and a big window in a $100,000.00 van with
a skylight no less. His transactions are all small $$ per package.
For reasons of productivity the copy room when there is one often has
two copiers or more per copy room person and they ain't cheep and eat paper too.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
possibly Ideal web developer environment: 1 monitor : database management software (ex. SSMS) 2nd monitor: dev tool (ex. VS) 3rd monitor: website under development Other uses include email & of course browser/ monitoring. At this point I think space becomes a major issue for monitors, but if you can get 3 to fit on your desk and your coding not having to tab your apps in the middle of testing saves a lot of time a day, as well as hand motion. Also, a common rule pertaining to developers applies here: if the equipment even increases the productivity of a developer by a bit, the equipment will pay for itself via the developer's salary.
Well, you've got to have some serious hardware to drive that many pixels. Being how old that monitor is now, I'm sure it can be done now. But instead we have to settle for 1080p 16:9 widescreen garbage.
You've included a pile of 1080 high screens in that which is where the $260 comes from. There's one 1200 high one for $700 (less than I expected) and the HP ZR30W for $1219.99 (2560x1600 for about I've seen before). In my country $1500 will buy a three year old high res LG which seems to be the cheapest option locally.
The main source of increased productivity from this is actually extremely simple to comprehend. If you are like most programmers or writers or even editors, or graphic designers.... etc. you will most likely have source material, or photos or some such open all at once. I have designed web pages and working on a single screen is really slow compared to working on multiple. It is a quantitative increase in amount of information to a flick of the eyes versus at a minimum one mouse click or alt+tab. The difference is startling! Another issue that never was brought up in the article linked was the whole scrolling right and left problem. If you are a programmer or web designer or editor of some sort. You are bound to have at minimum 3-5 windows open at the same time. As a programmer probably a window with functions and one with the entire program on it (depending on the language) or multiple programs even. To work with that and keep it uncluttered think about it this way: Is it easier for you to have a 17 x 20 Inches desk space where you have to keep 4 documents you are working on hand writing as well as the 3 different resource materials open, or is it easier to have the standard 4-5 foot long and 2 foot wide desk space? That is the comparison for the non computer illiterate that will open their eyes to the idea of multiple screens. To get a screen that would be large enough to put what you can put on two computer screens side by side would cost about 1-2 thousand dollars (thats for a decent or higher quality 45-55 inch tv screen) where you can spend 200-400 dollars and have 2 22-24 inch screens that you can put just about as much on. That is the difference because everyone thinks about alt+tab or the various other ways to quickly switch windows, but once again thats similar to having 4 documents on the small space along with research material. It is never as efficient as the multiple spaces or one massively larger space
And you don't know how to make one? Hand it in on the way out.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
By Scotsman, I mean someone who doesn't put sugar on his porridge.
You wouldn't consider the code that large businesses run their finance, inventory etc. on as serious? A lot of that was written without interactive debuggers, because they didn't exist when it was written.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If it's tedious without it then it must be possible. Ergo, you don't need it, however nice and useful it is to have.
I don't think someone with your level of comprehension skills is in a position to call anyone else an idiot.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've never had multiple monitors, but I suspect I'd find it useful if I ever did - assuming I learned how to use them properly. For now, virtual desktops do the job for me, albeit not perfectly.
I have on occasion used two computers (doing a Rick Wakeman as one former boss called it) when I've been interleaving two tasks. Yeah, it means you have to move from time to time, but actually that's good for you.
Back in the day, we used green screen dumb terminals. Some of us even had single session ones, meaning you had to log out and back in again when switching tasks, e.g. changing code, running it, and then looking at the resulting files at the OS level. If you had one of those bastards it was like Christmas and your birthday all in one if the guy next to you was absent.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
When I was a kid, I worked for companies that would complain about minor expenses like this. I will however make some observations from this :
..
1) If the developer really needs that second monitor, then for the $100 it costs to buy a second monitor he could just as easily go out and buy one. Unless
a) He is paid poorly as a developer and $100 seems like a lot as opposed to the equivalent of more than just lunch, a tank of gas and a video game. And therefore
i) He is willing to work for a company for little pay where he is valued little because he either lacks alternatives due to location or due to expertise/experience etc..
ii) He is a whiner baby and the real reason his boss is complaining about buying another monitor is because he doesn't like pampering this whiner baby and would be just as happy if the whiner baby quit.
b) He is a highly principled person who thinks that the $100 to buy an extra monitor is the company's responsibility but he lacks the ability to express himself as a mature responsible adult and simply comes off as a whiner baby when he does.
oh hell, I can go on like this for pages, but it's very hard to do with bullet lists without actually repeating myself constantly.
What it boils down to is.
The company is a bunch of tight wads who won't spend $100 for a cheap ass monitor for a developer who probably has proven to be a pain in the ass up until now and the company would love to get someone else for the position but realizes that this whiner baby is as bad as the next they'll end up with because they probably aren't willing to pay shit for a decent developer or to outsource to a respectable company like they should unless they happen to be big enough to have a proper development team on staff which would certainly be paid better and not make gripes over petty expenses.
If the original poster is at all serious, then here's what he/she needs to do :
1) Fire the whiner baby. You've already shit on him and there's no undoing what's been done. If he's a whiner baby now, then trying to fix the problem would require giving the mouse a cookie and then a glass of milk, then a mercedes and he'll still bitch like an old hag.
2) Either hire a proper consulting firm (not consultant... but consultant firm) to develop the project properly
OR...
3) Hire two (or more) well paid, experienced developers internally to take over for the whiner baby. Treat them as respected professionals and trust that if they request a second monitor that they believe it will make a positive impact on their efficiency. DO NOT recycle computers on the two new guys. Buy a new machine for each, preferably a laptop with a 17 inch screen and 1920x1200 resolution. This will save you money over the long run since developers with laptops tend to keep them around longer than desktop machines which they know are upgradeable and cheaper to replace.
4) Implement a project management methodology. Whether it's SCRUMM or some other useless system because it at least maintains some level of time accountability and makes it so that developers feel respected when they have a means of scheduling tasks instead of constantly dealing with "You need to add this feature NOW" and "Can you do this today?!" And it makes it so that management builds respect for people doing a non-trivial job as they will see the stickies on the board showing all the things that need to be done and therefore will see that they aren't just pouring money into a sink hole but that these people are actually working.
Heh. In my first programming job, I was expected to write my Fortran or assembly code with a pencil on 80-column paper coding sheets. These would then be passed on to the keypunch ops for coding to mag tapes or punch cards, depending on the size of the job. If my code worked, I would get a printout telling me so. If it didn't, I would get a much bigger printout of the core dump in hex on glorious 132-column green-and-white fanfold. Them were the days... ;-)
30" 25601440 more than enough to work...
Not Necessary.
A single 27" or larger, high resolution display would be fine too. ;-)
Of course, two 22" or 23" monitors would be cheaper.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
How much is the average coder paid? $30 an hour? Lets say the monitor has a value of $150, that works out to ~5 hours. Lets say the hypothetical coder, shows up to work, can't find their monitor. Now lets say they complain about it and try to get it reversed for the next two hours. Avoiding that discussion pays for a new monitor, because everyone involved is also getting paid. The coder is sitting in his managers office for an hour at $30, the manager is listening to the problem at $40 an hour. The coder is bitching to two coworkers at $100 an hour. Etc...
Sounds like he's internalized the idea that "having two monitors is verboten" and started to suffer from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome where having one monitor is seen as a good thing.
Requiem for the American Dream
Wrong, it was the decision of accountants. You see, they decided, and management OK'd
You contradicted your own argument. If "management OK'd" then that is management's decision. Accountants do not have the authority to do anything without management approval. They may want to do it but management can say no and management gets the final word. Management apparently did not say no in this case. That might (or might not) be a stupid decision but the responsibility for EVERYTHING in a company falls to management ultimately. Accounting has no more authority to take engineering equipment than engineering has the authority to take accounting gear unless management approves.
The accountants might have won the argument but it is management's decision at the end of the day. Good, bad or indifferent.
Since accounting gets the salary paid, the bills signed and so on, without management there, they'd be able to do this anyway, therefore management were not necessary.
Accountants do not (normally) sign the checks - management does. In fact letting an accountant sign the checks is a REALLY bad idea. (Can you say embezzlement? I knew you could) Except for the smallest companies accountants normally have their duties separated into dedicated functions to prevent fraud. Accountants do not have any authority aside from what they are granted by management. They can make recommendations which might be self serving but management ultimately makes the decisions. If they countermand the decisions of management, that is grounds for dismissal.
I am actually seeing a different list when I click on that link - first entry is now a Hanspree monitor and that Samsung is listed some way down as $369 which I still have to admit was about half of what I expected. I didn't notice either of those two yesterday so that list is changing.
In my country, despite now having a higher dollar than the US and being a lot closer to China that Samsung is going for $405 and the HP ZR30W for $2160. Prices have dropped far more than I was aware of, so yes it is not only under $1000 but also a long way under $700. It looks like those Trinitrons may be going soon because even IPS panels like the HP ZR24W have dropped dramaticly in price.
The wonders of progress :)
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
I'm a software developer. Most of the (well-paid) work I do involves communicating with others and thinking, neither of which requires more monitors.
Request, approve, order, receive, install... competition over who has what better stuff... these are signs of a power-obsessed organization that's completely lost its mind. Unfortunately, that's seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Think about it: if it takes $1000 in labor to run an approval process for a $200 item, your authority levels are totally out of balance. Really, just give everyone a reasonable budget to outfit their space in the way that works best for them, and if you want a strict rule, make it a rule against whining and stealing. Besides, if everyone has the same budget, people should be able to appreciate that some will spend it on a nice chair where others want more or larger monitors.
If your code is 80 columns wide, then there's no reason to have a terminal window wider than that. I can get 4 80x25 terminals open on a laptop with space left over or I can make one of them a full screen tall. Since my code fits in 80 columns, I have no incentive to make a terminal window wider than 80 columns. Rarely I make two windows a full screen tall to compare them side by side, but usually diff is what I use instead. Also, I try to fit all my ideas into 25 rows - 1 screenful. This is an old programming guideline that I admit to not always following, but I welcome the pain of having to resize my windows to accomodate longer procedures as a constant reminder to refactor my code.
I just have never found it necessary to look at more than 4 terminals of text at once. With alt-tab I can have a web browser and a gui tool open, or if I find the tab ring confusing, sometimes I shunt them to another desktop. Pressing a key combo to switch back and forth isn't any harder than moving my eyes back and forth to another monitor. In fact, I probably wouldn't even bother to plug a second monitor in if I had one. It would just be too much hassle for a laptop user like me.
Because I wouldn't plug it in, I can safely say that it wouldn't increase MY productivity. If forced to use one, the extra few seconds every morning it would take to plug it in, and figure out how to not mess anything up I was already doing so I could ignore it would slightly decrease my productivity, and the BS rule that I had to plug a second monitor in would decrease my morale.
Now let's look at how a study would be done: 1) Get a sample of employees, 2) divide them into a control group who will not get a second monitor, and an experiment group who will, 3) see if the groups' productivities are effected by the second monitor.
The group getting new monitors will contain some people who would benefit from a second monitor and some who would not. The productivity of those people will increase. Hence 'Second Monitors Increase Productivity' is the conclusion drawn.
Maybe other measures would be as effective, or close to as effective, but that isn't looked at. One can't draw the conclusion that 'Second Monitors Are the Best Means To Increase Productivity' or that 'Second Monitors Increase Productivity for Everyone', or that 'Being an Employee Whose Productivity Level is Susceptible to Being Increased By a Second Monitor is A Good Thing.'
However, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that: 'Tools Designed With The EXPECTATION That They Will Only Be Used With a Second JumboTron Monitor Suck'.
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Why do people keep assuming that all developers need is an IDE? What about their instant messaging client, their e-mail client, RSS reader, etc? Not to mention web developers who can put all their development tools on one screen and a browser (or 4) on the other.
Either way, they actually did studies on this (like TFA points out) and it's been proven to increase productivity by a very significant degree.
There are other metrics to consider as well, like how happy are your employees? A couple hundred bucks for a second monitor to keep employees happy, in a lot of cases, is a drop in the bucket.
Messaging client = just a little icon in the corner unless someone's talking to me. Email appears to me as the desktop behind my terminals unless I'm using it. I can see if I have a new message by the pop up notification. RSS? Never used it.
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It's not for everyone. But for lots of people (web developers, game developers, people developing using emulators for other platforms, people who make extensive use of communication tools, etc) it can be very beneficial.
Wait a few years - your eyes will want your stuff to look bigger.
(the last I looked, nobody's getting any younger)
for the doubters, more monitors take some time to get used to. The first day with a26", I was "wow, this is almost tooooo big!". When I bought a second, it was again "this is almost toooo much of a good thing." Now? Both of them + a 17" laptop, and I really would like a 3rd 26".
Screen area is like ram or cpu or hard disk space - every time you upgrade, you figure "Now I have more than I'll ever need ...", and eventually you find more ways to use it, until one day you're thinking "I really could use more".
Plus, with the higher resolution, I often write my constructors and short functions one per line. That's another thing that takes getting used to - your eyes and brain need to learn to accept a different format - but it makes for a lot less vertical scrolling.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.