My first computer was an Atari 800 connected to a miniscule ~7" television. Although I have worked with displays of various sizes, I presently own a total of f

My first computer was an Atari 800 connected to a miniscule ~7" television. Although I have worked with displays of various sizes, I presently own a total of four 30" LCDs and two 24" LCDs spread across my two main workstations. I invest heavily in displays at the expense of nearly everything else. I believe very strongly that displays are the crucial piece of hardware whose stagnation is keeping desktop computing from evolving [1]. So I pretty strongly agree with the article's thesis that learning to program is in part gated by the availability of a high-quality desktop-grade set of gear. (Whether it's truly a desktop computer or a laptop made to behave like one is a detail that I don't really care about; though I've never seen a laptop with three dual-link DVI ports.) I agree that once you use a large display, you absolutely do not want to go back to a small display. I contend that if I could buy a 50" high-DPI display for my desktop that once used, all of my current 30" monitors would feel antiquated and feeble. Suitable for the recycle bin. And I'd love that. Moving my eyes and/or turning my head is so much faster and productive than flipping through a stack of windows using even the best window manager. Also, I'm not sure why there's a thread here that says that some languages may see less benefit from large displays. Java is cited by name. I do Java web development and with Eclipse, code is compiled and hot-reloaded by the application container as I work. Modern Java is definitely sufficiently fast-paced to benefit dramatically from lots of screen real estate. One way to put it is that my app has been recompiled and hot reloaded well before I can find the browser window on a small display. [1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key http://tiamat.tsotech.com/displays-are-the-key