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Comment by pwang | Hacker News Reader

> And when you are a creator rather than a consumer (especially of the written word, be it code, essays or books), screen size rarely matters.

I don't necessarily agree with the parent post's sentiments, but I also disagree with this very broad blanket statement of yours. I am reasonably happy most of the time on my Macbook Air screen, but I definitely prefer to be coding on a larger screen when I can. I knew Joey back in college and he is a sharp guy with a LOT of working memory. My memory has gotten worse over time, and I tend to work with heterogenous codebases, so I can't fit everything in my head and need the screen real estate.

I know many excellent, productive devs who love having large screens to code on.

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You sure you knew the same guy? My working memory is crap, and, presumably, getting worse. ;)

I find that functional programming really cuts down on the amount of mental state I need to maintain. So while I'll have some API docs and another module or two open for reference, I don't need to worry about what that variable gets set to two pages above.

Maybe avoiding that kind of unnecessary detail makes one's unconscious better able to work on the program too. Still learning about this: http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/on_not_coding_late/

I'm pretty sure he knew you, I remember when we worked at the same company, we held you in similar high regard :-)

Yes Joey, though I'm not sure if you still remember me - We co-founded CSLUG back in 1995. :-) I was a lowly freshman happy to get to geek out on Linux with CS folks. (Not many Physics people were really into it then.)

Ah, see, I can remeber your full name, Peter .. just had trouble getting there from the HN username. :)

As I recall, you were the secretary of CSLUG.. Indeed, querying my external memory for your posts, I find meeting minutes you posted that bring back memories. Nice :)

Nice to hear from you!

I can't fit everything in my head and need the screen real estate.

For those of us who use virtual desktops, the physical resolution of the screen is just a small fraction of the total. I code in a 12" laptop with just 1280x800 pixels, but my effective resolution is 20 times that.

Do you really use 20 desktops? If so, I'm curious what you use all of them for.

I try to limit myself to 3 but you have me wondering what else I could separate out.

At least for me, it's a completely different interaction pattern - basically switching between individual windows using desktop hotkeys.

I've got 24 desktops set up, but mostly use just 12. F1-F3 are generally code or whatever main technical task I am doing. F4 is compile+run, reload configuration and test, etc. F5 is Chromium for html documentation of whatever I'm working on (currently the Honda Civic service manual, sigh). F6 is evince with pdf documentation, and/or a second firefox window when I want some tabs that won't end up getting lost amongst others. F7 is Firefox for general web browsing, plus any pdfs opened directly from the web. F8 is generally email. F9 is music. F10/F11 is a wasteland of quasi-temporary shells. F12 is IM. Alt+F1-F4 generally get used when I'm in the middle of programming and want a clean slate to do some multiple machine sysadmin task. The rest only get used when I have a very seldom need for more desktops, but why wouldn't I fill out the hotkeys?

Shift+key changes to the associated desktop, bringing the active window along for the ride. Changing tasks (how I think people normally view virtual desktops) happens by letting the old task's windows fall by the wayside on their respective desktops. And yes, clearly this setup predates tiling window managers by quite some time.

I just had this epiphany. I tried to explain this too my friends but I still out nerd them and they aren't very excitable. I just bought one of the HiDPI monitor for super cheap and it does suck going back to the MBA screen, not just for real estate but quality (and Mac font rendering, bleck). What I can't get over is how much more productive I am. I can have three different bits of code side-by-side, a terminal with gdb, Chrome open with docs, all in one screen.

That's HUGE, at least for me. I'm constantly alt-tabing or changing workspaces on my Mac and every second I have to wait for that animation, or look at that variable name, or remember why it return an (int, error) not just (int), I was losing my momentum.

Honestly, I'm excited to start my full time job to buy another of these bad boys to use at work.

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