> I've never felt very productive doing any programming outside. Is that just me?

Depends on your personal history I'd say. If you spend years working from home, with little outside interaction in the day to day, productivity truly suffers. Changing your environment can be a huge productivity booster.

Certain types of work I can do by the pool or in a loud cafe. Mainly expository work like fleshing out a schema or writing doc / emails - where having external inputs guides my internal thought processes.

Implementing designs, for me requires zoning as much as possible. Desks are good for this (if open-style office, headsets with downtempo playing or preferably fewer colleagues around is best).

I'd never take non-hardened gear like a laptop to a beach... if I'm at the beach I'm there to have fun not work.

Same here. I've tried the outside thing and I think I'm just far more productive and far happier if I keep my outside time free of work.

And there's the fact that my desk is set up to be comfortable, protect against RSI, and have everything I need available at hand. Just sitting back down brings back where I was the previous day.

I like having talking meetings outside. But programming? Never again.

I simply can't program with a laptop in my lap without my hands/back starting to hurt immediately. I'd love to work from the beach but I really need an ergonomic setup to get any real work done.

I really like coding in my garden. I enjoy videoconferencing in my garden even more.