3 ms·

Might seem counterintuitive but the productivity gain of having more screen real estate has diminishing returns very quickly beyond one screen and any perceived

• J_Shelby_J 3y ago
  You mean….Turning your head isn't faster that alt+tabbing?next you’re going to tell me visible, but unnecessary, application windows increase cognitive load! Sheeesh, let me bake my face in several hundred watts of infrared heat 12 hours a day. I look so damn productive!
  • xwdv 3y ago
    Back in the days of office work having multiple monitors was mostly a power move, a sort of status symbol like having a corner office with windows. There’s really no need for anything more than a single screen. I don’t even work off anything more than a laptop unless I’m feeling gratuitous.
  • gwd 3y ago
    > Turning your head isn't faster that alt+tabbing? Turning your head a few degrees, to the location you remember putting one specific window, and which is probably currently in your peripheral vision, is absolutely faster than tabbing through who knows how many windows to get the one you want.
    • LoganDark 3y ago
      Eh, if you only have to switch between a few windows, alt+tab can get pretty fast, especially if you build up the "skill" to estimate how far back a certain window is in the tab list. But looking is definitely easier and less complicated.
    • xwdv 3y ago
      No it’s not. I guarantee you I can jump damn near instantly to any tab or application window I want faster than you could turn your head. It’s like the difference between pushing your mouse a couple inches to carefully click some element, vs just using a shortcut. If people truly want to increase productivity, they would master these keyboard movements. Also, the more monitors you have to look at, the slower your head movements will get. With a single monitor your head your eyes have very minimal movement. Consider how fast your eyes dart around on a small screen like a phone.
  • chrisjj 3y ago
    > Turning your head ... And tilting your head. And turning your body unless you want neck strain. Then there's tilting your body...
• MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  Being able to shape applications to the size I would like for them to be without needing to buy yet another peripheral is greatness, though. If I want a really long code window, I can do that. If I want a really long terminal nearby because I'm grepping a huge codebase, I can do that. If I want to work on a large visual diagram while viewing the code and the terminal, I can view the entire thing and I don't have to worry about switching windows.
  • xwdv 3y ago
    Why do you need a long code window? You should always be a couple key strokes away from anywhere in the code base. This makes having to see everything all at once irrelevant. Visually seeing all that code doesn’t increase productivity, jumping to specific lines does.
    • cududa 3y ago
      This might be shocking to learn, but different people work differently and what works for you might not be best for everyone else
    • MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      Maybe you're a magical gnome who has never had to edit anyone else's code before, and all the code you've touched is perfect and no function is longer than a few lines. Most of us don't get to have that experience, and so we choose our tools accordingly.
      • xwdv 3y ago
        To me it’s far more magical to setup your workspace like some panopticon of code and somehow observe everything all at once.