Wow it seems we have incredibly similar situations! Here's my current zoom level on HN, sitting upright with my face about 2 feet (rough guess, maybe half a meter?) on a 27" monitor http://i.imgur.com/oCU01L9.png

(Ignore all the noob tabs, I'm currently making a lesson plan to teach children PHP!)

I'll definitely give linux another try, although I'll still have to keep my Windows install for gaming at home, my laptop could benefit from a nice distro.

I also find it funny how people can read my screen from the other side of the room. Somewhat unrelated but funny anecdote is my friends staring in awe at my ability to use Visual Studio on a 14" ultrabook display - huge font size and lots of nice whitespace = not very many columns. A friend noted "your brain must have a huge code buffer"!

I do agree though that of all possible career options, there are far more which could be hindered greatly than development.

Edit: As a side note, I think the last figure I can remember for my vision was 6/36 - although that was years ago. I don't really bother with glasses now because the correction apparently just helps to "not tire my eyes so much from the nystagmus" - not an acuity correction unfortunately.