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4K is for programmers

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Re: 4K is for programmers

#161

Post by larve »

r0h1n wrote: post #82

The article lists the "ideal size" for monitors at 50 inches, and the one for TVs at 100+ inches! While I'm sure it's great to have such massive screen real estate (I wanna get a 4K in 2014 too), I can't but help think this is the programmer equivalent of consumers buying needlessly large TVs. I work on a 24" desktop monitor and a 14" laptop one. How is 50" the "ideal size"? Even 39"? At what point does the law of di…

I use 6 19" monitors (using a combination of display port, HDMI, display link adapters). It's a bit of a mess to set up, but I like the actual physical splitting of the monitors (I have the logfile monitor, the google chrome monitor, the firefox monitor, the jira monitor, the editor monitor, etc...). Also, it plays in very well with a tiling window manager where I can just switch windows from one monitor to the next without having to worry too much about tiling "inside" of a screen. On bigger than 19" monitors, I find I can fit more than 2 windows side by side and then it becomes a weird game of rearranging windows.

I have been using this for 3+ years now, and while people always look at me like I'm crazy when setting up 6-7 monitors on my desk (I freelance so I usually lug them around or just buy a used set of monitors for a few bucks), I could never go back. Not switching windows, and using your peripheral vision for things like database load, or just plain having 2 editor monitors and 2 reference browsers open at the same time is invaluable.

While I can work on a single monitor, even a huge one (I love the 3k x 2k notebook resolutions), I feel cramped because I don't have the physical separation that comes from the multiple monitors.

Re: 4K is for programmers

#162

Post by emirozer »

samstave wrote: post #113
MetaCosm wrote: post #104

> Today, you can still buy a 30-inch 2560x1600 display for over $1,000. Or you can get a 39-inch 3840x2160 display for $500. This choice is not even fair. Yes, you can buy a wonderful, physically adjustable, mountable, color calibrated, blissful contrast, delightful brightness control monitor with a great matte finish like the Dell 3014... or you can buy an absolutely awful 30hz, locked in place, blue tinted, horribl…

> to stare at vim on Well, there's your problem right there...

ahahah wp sir wp

Re: 4K is for programmers

#163

Post by jkscm »

sparkie wrote: post #150
jkscm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations? I dived into xmonad some time ago but I never found a good and fast windows manager for OS X.

I use bspwm, which has a very simple design and follows the unix philosophy quite nicely. A single daemon process which manages windows, and all configuration is done with the shell via the `bspc` command, which talks to the daemon over a socket. A separate daemon (sxhkd) is used for keybindings, and the configuration for sxhkd is just a map of keybindings (including mouse buttons) to shell commands, with a very simp…

wow, the tiling concept looks even more flexible than the tiling in xmonad. I will definitely try this.

Re: 4K is for programmers

#164

Post by sparkie »

jkscm wrote: post #163
sparkie wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use bspwm, which has a very simple design and follows the unix philosophy quite nicely. A single daemon process which manages windows, and all configuration is done with the shell via the `bspc` command, which talks to the daemon over a socket. A separate daemon (sxhkd) is used for keybindings, and the configuration for sxhkd is just a map of keybindings (including mouse buttons) to shell commands, with a very simp…

wow, the tiling concept looks even more flexible than the tiling in xmonad. I will definitely try this.

I wouldn't say it's more flexible, as XMonad has all the power of Haskell behind it (+ ability to create sub layouts), and is easier to create more complicated arrangements than hacking together a bunch of bash scripts - but I think it's a good balance of flexibility:simplicity. XMonad is pretty complicated to configure even pretty basic things.

Re: 4K is for programmers

#165

Post by marcosdumay »

NigelTufnel wrote: post #134
fhd2 wrote: post #130

> At our office, we just equipped all of the programmers' workstations with Seiki 39" 4K televisions as monitors. [...] For the time being, there is no single higher-productivity display for a programmer. Maybe it's just me, but I'm most productive on a 13" laptop. I can change my work place and position as I want, plus only one app fitting on the screen actually helps me focus. Emacs/tmux/IDE users can do most progr…

It's not just you. While reading the article I was thinking "wow, these guys are using 39" monitors, while I'm perfectly happy with a single 17" monitor or a 13" laptop. There must be something wrong with me." Emacs is my screen space saviour. Every file or shell is 3 key presses away, I just don't need extra monitors.

Have you tried emacs in portrait mode on a bigger screen?

Re: 4K is for programmers

#166

Post by mhd »

mproud wrote: post #68

Whatever. It’s not the number of pixels, it’s the pixel density that’s important. Higher density is what is going to make text and pictures better. At 39″, that’s 113 ppi. Anyone can rig up a multi-monitor display setup with higher ppi. The only advancement is one physical screen that a good number of GPUs can’t take advantage of. For comparison, my Retina 13″ MacBook Pro has 2560x1440, 2.5K (or really ⅔ 4K) but at 2…

For programming, pixel density will probably just get me smoother fonts. Previously it might have gotten me more lines of fonts, as I could've reduced the font size will maintaining readability. But I think I've reached a limit there, where further decreasing the point size just hurts. And honestly, with your usual fare of monochromatic fonts and current font smoothing tech, I'm quite okay even with "just" 1900x1200 resolution.

For other stuff, sure, more pixels won't hurt. Reading PDF at high ppi devices is a joy.

But getting back to programming, I wonder how I'd cope with a 39" display. At the same position where my monitors are now, I could probably replace two with just the one. With two monitors my viewing angle is too wide anyway, so again I'd mostly use either one half of the screen for lots of stuff while paused videos and web pages occupy the rest, or just push everything to the sides and focus on the center. Maybe TekWar had it right...

Re: 4K is for programmers

#167

Post by Sambdala »

espeed wrote: post #109
r0h1n wrote: post #82

The article lists the "ideal size" for monitors at 50 inches, and the one for TVs at 100+ inches! While I'm sure it's great to have such massive screen real estate (I wanna get a 4K in 2014 too), I can't but help think this is the programmer equivalent of consumers buying needlessly large TVs. I work on a 24" desktop monitor and a 14" laptop one. How is 50" the "ideal size"? Even 39"? At what point does the law of di…

Jakob Nielsen's research on "ideal size" is 48Kx32K (1200 dpi) @ 1200 fps for perfect image quality. See http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-much-bandwidth-is-enough... His 2012 recommendation was 30" or larger screens for knowledge workers ( http://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-screens-getting-big... ).

"A 48Kx32K pixel monitor with 24-bit-per-pixel color needs 4.6 GB videoRAM, so it will probably be about seventeen years (2012) before these perfect monitors are commonplace."

Re: 4K is for programmers

#168

Post by mhd »

Anyone knows where you can get something like this at a similar price point in Germany? The only price I could find the exact same TV was 1200 Euros (about $1600). Not even ebay's international sellers seem to have it, and those proved pretty useful when it came to the Korean high density IPS monitors...

Re: 4K is for programmers

#169

Post by Torn »

MetaCosm wrote: post #104

> Today, you can still buy a 30-inch 2560x1600 display for over $1,000. Or you can get a 39-inch 3840x2160 display for $500. This choice is not even fair. Yes, you can buy a wonderful, physically adjustable, mountable, color calibrated, blissful contrast, delightful brightness control monitor with a great matte finish like the Dell 3014... or you can buy an absolutely awful 30hz, locked in place, blue tinted, horribl…

Thanks for pointing this out -- the article seemed to completely overlooked the panel quality and configurability.

I'm personally really looking forward to a proper UHD/4K over 30" that does 144hz with GSync, which I can use as my main desktop monitor. It'll finally be a reason to upgrade from my old Dell Ultrasharp.

The Asus PQ321Q is almost there, it's just limited to 60hz.

Re: 4K is for programmers

#170

Post by josu »

WalterBright wrote: post #140
sentenza wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how a TV can be needlessly large. Also, I don't understand why people still buy TVs in 2014. When I replaced my TV about 4-5 years ago, I bought a 500€ beamer and a 100€ retractable canvas. Sure, that beamer only has 1024x768, but today you'll certainly be able to buy something significantly better in a similar price range. With my living room PC connected to the beamer, my "screen" is 1.7 m…

The fan noise for a projector can get fairly annoying.

Although your brain erases the noise after a while, it is indeed pretty annoying.
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