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4K Is For Programmers
An anonymous reader writes "The 4K television revolution is upon us, and nobody is impressed. Most users seem content to wait until there's actually something to watch on these ultra-high-res displays, and also for the price to come down. However, Brian Hauer has written an article promoting a non-standard use for these displays. His office just got a 39", 3840x2160 display for each of their programmers' workstations. He now confidently declares, 'For the time being, there is no single higher-productivity display for a programmer.' Hauer explains: 'Four editors side-by-side each with over a hundred lines of code, and enough room to spare for a project navigator, console, and debugger. Enough room to visualize the back-end service code, the HTML template, the style-sheet, the client-side script, and the finished result in a web browser — all at once without one press of Alt-tab.'"
Personally, While 1 large monitor could have some advantages, I feel that many smaller monitors actually work better. Most window managers don't really handle a single large monitor as well as many small ones. For instance, I can just maximize a bunch of different applications, each on different monitor. Only takes a few clicks. To do something similar with multiple monitors, I'd have to do a lot of manual movement and resizing of windows to get things to line up right. I have 3 17 inch (4:3) monitors on my desk right now. 17 inch monitors are fine for a single window. I could see how having them slightly larger would be nice, but I'd much rather have 3, 17 inch monitors than a single 40 inch monitor, no matter the resolution.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
If you were an investor you'd be upset at a company spending $500 a head replacing programmer's monitors? Sorry, but that's idiotic.
Almost any non-negligible productivity improvement is going to recoup $500 over the lifespan of an LED monitor.
Yeah, because spending $500 on a monitor is just outrageous. That's an insane amount of money to spend on equipment for someone paid several times that amount every week.
So let me get this straight:
You'd be angry that the company was spending some tiny fraction of the programmer's total annual cost (salary + taxes +pension + health insurance + building overheads + support overheads)--even smaller when you amortize it over the life of the monitor--to make the expensive programmers more productive.
You're nuts.
Are you also angry that they've got decent computers rather than underspecced, second hand $100 shitboxes?
If it costs you $10k per year to make the programmer 10% productive, that's going to be a substantial win unless you have very cheap programmers.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, to be fair, at 40 inches, 4k actually starts to make sense. It's basically the same as 4, 1080p monitors, each being 20 inches. So, you could basically get a similar layout by purchasing 4 smaller monitors, and then arranging them in big rectangle. Plus, as I said in another post, arranging windows is easier on multiple monitors.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You can currently buy a 2560x1440 27" display for around $350. The Seiki display they refer to is actually two 1920x2160 panels stitched together and limited to a painful 30hz. Second, the monitor is not 4k, it's 3840x2160 which is only UHD. 4k is 4096x2160.
Finally, this is a nearly 40 inch display. They look ridiculous as a computer monitor and the ergonomics suck.
Just give us 4k in a 27-30" form factor for people that aren't blind. I'm amazed that phones can have higher pixel densities than computer monitors.
Shut up and take my employer's money.
Was I the only one who thought about the 4K demo coding contests when reading the headline?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Response from management:
Eh, accounting says we don't have that kind of money and down in the basement we have some old green screen apple ][ monitors. Programmers just look at text anyway right?
I have a business meeting in cancun, and will be out of the office for three weeks...
Oh, for "-1, Used subject line as first line of comment".
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
> Must... reopen... Dell financing account.
It isn't like these are some crazy-expensive $3000 monitors.
They are only $500 at Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DOPGO2G
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