221–230 of 1001 posts
I prefer real-estate to sharp fonts, so I run my 4K screens (24" and 27") with no scaling at all.
You must have super sharp vision
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I have used between 1-3 monitors over the last decade, and there sure are advantages to having 3 for certain tasks. However, I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen). This decreased my productivity. Perhaps not everyone has thi…
Coronavirus has robbed me of one of my favorite productivity hacks, which is coding on old Thinkpad with 4:3 ratio display, at a coffeeshop or library with Internet turned off. No distractions, no multitasking, just pure focus on a problem. I miss it.
The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…
Have you used a 4K display, for at least a few days? If you have, I still disagree with you, but if not, I’m going to completely ignore your opinion, because I find the difference in how pleasant it is to use a good screen just so vast. Sure, you can do things on a lousy monitor, but it’s terrible and you’ll hate it. :) (My first laptop was a second-hand HP 6710b at 1680×1050 for 15″, and that set me to never accepti…
I'll go one step further: I used the LG 27" 5K Display for two whole years before returning to a 34" Ultrawide with a more typical DPI.
Obviously I preferred the pixel density and image quality of the high-DPI screen, but I find myself more productive on the 34" Ultrawide with a regular DPI. (FWIW, LG now has a newer pseudo-5K Ultrawide that strikes a balance between the two).
I look forward to the day that monitors of all sizes are available with high DPI, but I don't consider it a must-have upgrade just yet.
Also Note that Apple made font rendering worse starting in OS X 10.14 by disabling subpixel AA. Using a regular DPI monitor on Windows or Linux is a better experience than using the same monitor on OS X right now. If you're only comparing monitors based on OSX, you're not getting the full story.
The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…
I look at my screen most of the time. I'm not buying cheap screens anymore. It is just not worth it.
I still use a CRT, because features I want are still ludicrous expensive in newer tech (although they are getting cheaper over time). 1. Arbitrary resolutions, great to run old software and games, even better to run new games at lower resolution to increase performance. 2. Arbitrary refresh rates. 3. Zero (literally) response time. 4. Awesome color range (many modern screens still are 12bit, meanwhile silicon graphic…
Unless you're using a really cheap screen, most LCDs are 8 bits per color. The cheap ones use 6 bits + 2 bits FRC. 12 bits (presumably 4 bits per color) seems insanely low because it would mean only 16 possible shades per primary color.
>meanwhile silicon graphics had a CRT screen in 1995 that was 48bit
Source for this? 10 bit color support in graphics cards only became available around 2015. I find it hard to believe that there was 48 bits (presumably 16 bit per color) back in 1995, where 256 color monitors were common. Moreover, is there even a point of using 16 bits per color? We've only switched to 10 bit because of HDR.
>7. Those things are crazy resilient, I still have some working screens from 80286 era (granted, the colors are getting weird now with aging phosphors), while some of my new flatpanels failed within 2 years with no repair possible.
This sounds like standard bathtub curve/survivor bias to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love my 3 monitor setup. In 20 years of coding, I finally reached peak productivity in my workspace. No switching between windows, ease of throwing a window aside for monitoring, laying out information and tools side to side. It’s incredible once you readjust your habits and learn to use that new space. I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I was one of…
> I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I have used between 1-3 monitors over the last decade, and there sure are advantages to having 3 for certain tasks. However, I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen). This decreased my productivity. Perhaps not everyone has thi…
I came to the comments expecting lots of (irrelevant, I know) complaints about the painfully bright yellow background of the article - but nobody has mentioned it yet. Is it serving different colours to different people, or am I unusually sensitive to this colour? I found the page unreadable without switching to reader mode.
It was painful to look at.
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Yeah, I wouldn't say having a mechanical keyboard makes your code any higher quality - that'd be pretty silly. I think in general the thought is, if you care enough about your craft that you seek out refined tools, that care will be reflected in higher-quality development. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I'm inclined to believe there's a correlation. I mean, it would be weird to visit a professional car…
Thanks for the reply. I think there is little to no correlation, but like the opposite opinion, I've no proof other than the anecdotal: the best hackers I've known didn't care about these things. Other bizarre opinions I've read from Atwood and his followers: that you should be an excellent typist (this is also related to owning a mechanical keyboard). No. Just no. Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing soft…
I agree, if speed of your typing is your bottleneck in getting code written, perhaps you should be coding smarter not harder.
I think there is some wisdom that you should try to be a "good" typist, in that better typing skills reduce the risk of injury (RSI), but that's self-care/ergonomics, and while still very important, there are plenty of good software developers that hunt-and-pecked their way to an early retirement (and/or multiple carpal tunnel surgeries).