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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

481–490 of 1001 posts

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#481
The other side to this is that it may also be time to upgrade your eyes (with glasses, by getting your eyes checked). It's more likely this is true if you don't think it's time to upgrade your HD monitor.

Somehow I went for years without realizing that I just needed glasses. I could read everything before, but after getting the glasses everything was suddenly unnaturally crisp.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#482
post #76

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…

Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…

>My setup is 2x24" 1920x1200 monitors - so I get slightly more vertical pixels than true 1080p, but in the form of screen real estate rather than improved density.

I'm working on an old 24"16/10 display (the venerable ProLite B2403WS) and an OK 32" 4K display with a VA panel. Both are properly calibrated.

There is no amount of tinkering that can make fonts on the 24" look good. It looks like dog shit in comparison to the 4K screen. It might not be obvious when all you got in front of your eyes is the 24" display, but it's blatant side to side.

On top of it, the real life vertical real estate of the 4K display is also quite larger.

I've never been a big 16/9 fan, but frankly at the size monitors come in today and the market prices, I don't a reason not to pick a few of these for developing.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to blame anyone, it's easiest to blame Google's failed EEE attempt on the blogging world with sunset of Reader and attempt to push everyone to Google+. There were so many blogs and meta-blogs I saw directly lost in that fumbled transition. In trying to build their own Facebook, Google did irreparable harm to the blogging world in the process.

I'm certainly no fan of Google, to say the very least. That said, they've kept Blogger relatively unchanged, which is nice. At least count your blessings that making blogging platforms must not impress promotion committees nearly as much as writing new chat apps.

"Relatively unchanged" is such an interesting POV. It's been in such a stasis that I pretty much assume it is as dead as LiveJournal. Maybe not in literally the same way that LiveJournal got shuffled around in a shell game to some strange Russian owners, but in a very metaphorical sense.

At one point Blogger in the early oughts was ahead of the pack in leading mainstream acceptance and usage of blogs. At one point my feed list was over half Blogger sites, but today I can think of only a few Blogger-hosted blogs left at all in my feed list, none of them have been updated recently, and those that have updated recently were claimed by spammers and (sadly) dropped from my list.

I can't imagine there's much more than a skeleton crew at Blogger keeping the lights on, and I would be unsurprised, if in pushing the metaphor to the LiveJournal thing, to learn that they were being kept in the Bay Area equivalent of Siberia by some half-mad state actors that need Blogger's zombie to keep its current undead behavior in some strange psy ops nightmare.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#484
post #152

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 understand this and I don't want to argue against anyone's preferences. You know what's best for you . I'm just pushing back against these out of touch fads. Most developers worldwide don't have a three-monitor setup. There is no proven correlation between quality software and 4K displays or mechanical keyboards (to name other fads). More importantly, the best devs I've known -- people I admire -- used tiny laptops…

20 years ago when GeForce 2 MX appeared I switched to 2 monitors; in the next 6 months the software department (that was the name) switched to 2 monitors by contagion; I was in the infrastructure department, they just saw the benefits. Since then, I never worked with less than 2 monitors. I can use productively 3 if I have it, otherwise (and most of the time) I use 2.

I am not a good developer, it is not my job, but I started coding on a Commodore 64 in text mode, then I did Cobol and FoxPro for DOS on 80x25 screen with no problem. But when larger monitors appeared, I used it, when the possibility to use more than one monitor appeared, I used it. It is a case of technology helping you, not making you better but helping - I am more productive using 2 monitors than limiting to just one. Because of this, I use the laptop (1366x768 screen) only as a portable email tool, everything else is on a pair of 24" monitors, in the office or at home. Sometimes I pull a monitor from another desk (in the office) or other computer (at home) when I do specific work that benefits of 3 monitors, but it is not a matter of preference, just specific use cases where 3 is better than 2.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#485
post #139

I found this article utterly baffling. The author clearly knows their stuff, having created Fira Code, but my experiences couldn't be more different. I spend most of my days in a text browser, text editor and text terminal, looking at barely moving letters. So I optimize my setup to showing really, really good letters. I certainly appreciate how nice text looks on a high DPI display. But for coding purposes!? I don't…

Well, it's really about personal preference and while I know a couple of collegues with your preference, I feel it's the minority. I take two 16:9 screens over one 3840x1600 screen anytime. No need to setup some additional inner-mintor split-window management. Split-monitor management and workspaces works very well and I can even turn the 2nd monitor off, when I don't need it and want full focus mode (i.e. reading).…

This is, of course, an issue of personal preference and I do not work for a monitor manufacturer so I'm not trying to talk anybody into buying anything hahaha.

    Also I prefer my main monitor exactly in the middle 
    in front of me and an actual 2nd monitor
I don't understand how dual 16:9 screens help with this! But I agree with you that I hate having a "split" in the middle. I need my main monitor centered.

My monitor arrangement is:

- Dell 38" ultrawide (centered in front of me). Work happens here, obviously. MacOS virtual desktops, while not the most feature-heavy, cover my needs well enough here. Of course I respect that some people lean into virtual desktops/workspaces harder and need more.

- Compact ("portable") 15" 1080p monitor, centered in front of me under the ultrawide. This is essentially dedicated to Slack and my notetaking app. This leaves the Dell at a decent ergonomic height at my eye level.

- Laptop off to the side, for nonessential stuff - typically music app, sometimes Twitter or news feeds

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they even still make CRTs, or are you using a really old one?

Sadly, the CRT manufacturers back then when it was still obviously superior to LCD and Plasma, decided to kill it early, SONY was still selling CRTs faster than flat panels when they shut down their factories. Many people today think that noone make CRT because noone buy it, but is the opposite, you couldn't buy CRTs anymore because manufacturers intentionally killed them. There was even research ongoing at the time…

> medical industry (for example to diagnose certain visual disorders,

I think I can guess what's this is about but do tell

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upgraded from dual 34" ultrawides to one 49" super ultrawide and won't look back. 5140x1440 on a single monitor at 120hz.

That's just two monitors in one that you cannot rotate into a two-pane, effectively 2880x2570 configuration. Nice that there no division, of course.

It takes up zero desk space (one monitor arm that lets me adjust it anytime I want), and I don't need to rotate it. I've never found that a useful thing to do.

On the other hand, when you're done work its amazing for flight simulator or other games that support the aspect ratio properly.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#488

Yeah... I've got a small anecdote. I find that I write better code on lower resolution screens. Right now, I'm on a 1440x900 display at 75 dpi. And it's annoying, for sure. But it keeps my code concise and well-organized. It forces you develop your code around a mental model, instead of a visual model. I find that at 4K, my code starts spreading out -- horizontally and vertically. That's fine when you're writing it,…

You can change the font size everywhere.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…

I have a 49" curved monitor. It is effectively two 27" 1440p monitors stapled together (5120x1440). It is the best monitor I have ever had. 1440p has a very decent [higher than typical] pixel density but is not "retina". Fonts look pretty smooth, but you can still see pixels if you try really hard. Overall, I do think high density screens look amazing, but the software has not quite caught up to them. The benefits ar…

Hey, do you mind sharing more info. on how to get the monitor? I'm looking to invest in a curved one since it's an experience I've never had. And are there retina models out there, or is it not worth it, in your view?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#490
post #139

I found this article utterly baffling. The author clearly knows their stuff, having created Fira Code, but my experiences couldn't be more different. I spend most of my days in a text browser, text editor and text terminal, looking at barely moving letters. So I optimize my setup to showing really, really good letters. I certainly appreciate how nice text looks on a high DPI display. But for coding purposes!? I don't…

Well, it's really about personal preference and while I know a couple of collegues with your preference, I feel it's the minority. I take two 16:9 screens over one 3840x1600 screen anytime. No need to setup some additional inner-mintor split-window management. Split-monitor management and workspaces works very well and I can even turn the 2nd monitor off, when I don't need it and want full focus mode (i.e. reading).…

I have a Dell 38" 3840 x 1600 Ultrawide and it is bliss. I don't think of it as two screens, I think of it as three. I can comfortably have three applications displayed side by side with no seam down the middle. For me, it isn't about the crispest font I can get. It is good resolution and tons of real estate.
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