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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#911

Post by valuearb »

dingaling wrote: post #807
valuearb wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to write great code on the original Mac’s 512 by 384 screen, doesn’t mean we were very productive at it. A 5K monitor allows you to view an enormous set of workspaces and code, and sharply. It will cost you less than $300 a year, which for any decent developer is less than 1/2 of 1% of your annual revenues (and its tax deductible for contractors!). There is no way the increase on productivity doesn’t far outw…

> It will cost you less than $300 a year Don't forget the cost of buying a new computer that can drive that display. None of our laptops even have DisplayPort outputs let alone sufficient onboard graphics for that resolution.

All Macs drive it.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#912

Post by zlynx »

dingaling wrote: post #807
valuearb wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to write great code on the original Mac’s 512 by 384 screen, doesn’t mean we were very productive at it. A 5K monitor allows you to view an enormous set of workspaces and code, and sharply. It will cost you less than $300 a year, which for any decent developer is less than 1/2 of 1% of your annual revenues (and its tax deductible for contractors!). There is no way the increase on productivity doesn’t far outw…

> It will cost you less than $300 a year Don't forget the cost of buying a new computer that can drive that display. None of our laptops even have DisplayPort outputs let alone sufficient onboard graphics for that resolution.

An Intel iGPU can run dual 4K displays just fine, if it has dual channel RAM.

I'm still upset at Lenovo thinking 16 GB should come in one RAM stick.

If you have a Thunderbolt USB-C port then you have a DisplayPort. Some monitors accept it directly and will act as a charger and docking station. Others need a fairly inexpensive USB-C to DP adapter.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#913

Post by valuearb »

the_af wrote: post #711
valuearb wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to write great code on the original Mac’s 512 by 384 screen, doesn’t mean we were very productive at it. A 5K monitor allows you to view an enormous set of workspaces and code, and sharply. It will cost you less than $300 a year, which for any decent developer is less than 1/2 of 1% of your annual revenues (and its tax deductible for contractors!). There is no way the increase on productivity doesn’t far outw…

What do you mean "we weren't very productive"? People were plenty productive with the original Mac. I was plenty productive on PC XT clone with a tiny monochrome CRT monitor and an Hercules video card. (I wanted to say I was plenty productive with my C64, but that'd be stretching it :P ) What I want to fight is this notion that once tech N+1 arrives, then tech N must have been unproductive. That's demonstrably false,…

Productivity = work/time

It’s indisputable that modern screens, tools, etc make developers more productive than smaller screens, slower CPUs did.

I used to have 30 minute compile times. Was I “productive “? Sure, I guess, but 20 second compile times make me more productive.

And being able to see over one hundred lines of code side by side with documentation makes me even more productive.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#914

Post by gimboland »

thomaslord wrote: post #239
the_af wrote: 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…

> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode.

I haven't had this experience (MacOS, 4K monitor for 2.5 years)

> 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plugging in a 1080p monitor. Also good luck having anyone's random spare monitor be 4k.

shrug - 4K and 1080p seem to work together just fine for me. I've currently got a 27" 4K monitor and a 24" 1080p monitor both running off my 2015 13" MacBook Pro; the 4K is on DisplayPort (60Hz @ 3840x2160) and the 1080p is on HDMI (and it happens to be in portrait mode). I use all three screens (including the laptop's), and while the 1080p is noticeably crappier than the other two, it's still usable, and the combination of all three together works well for me. A couple of extra tools (e.g. BetterTouchTool) really help with throwing things between monitors, resizing them to take up some particular chunk of the screen, etc. - my setup's quite keyboard-heavy with emphasis on making full use of the space inspired by years of running i3 (and before that xmonad, ratpoison and others) on linux and freebsd.

> 3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming.

That's a statement about linux and i3, not monitors. (And again, I like i3, but stating this limitation as if it's a problem with monitors not i3 seems... odd.)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#915

Post by gimboland »

mulmen wrote: post #687
Godel_unicode wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're on Windows, consider the fancyzones power toy. Break up your screens into an arbitrary set of maximizable zones. Highly recommend if the normal 4 corners isn't enough for you. https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/tree/master/src/modul...

I'm on MacOS. I basically never maximize anything. I just resize the floating windows and put them where they make sense at the time. The dream would be doing this with the keyboard using something like i3. I have been tinkering with that on weekends but M-F I focus on paying work.

BetterTouchTool is _excellent_ for window placement/resizing; also can be triggered externally if you want to combine it with Alfred for Karabiner Elements (though you don't have to, you can define the triggers in BTT itself).

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#916

Post by sukilot »

nvarsj wrote: post #827
thruhiker wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting position. I have always thought that font and font rendering were always an especially pernicious issue with Linux and a relative joy on MacOS?

I think that is a historical artifact. Ubuntu had a set of patches for freetype called infinality, developed around mid 2010, which dramatically improved font rendering. Since then, most of those improvements have been adopted and improved in upstream. [1] Any relatively modern Linux desktop should have very good font rendering. [1]: https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.htm...

Except for the hidpi inconsistency across apps and window managers

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#917

Post by martopix »

"This will make everything on the screen slightly bigger, leaving you (slightly!) less screen estate. This is expected. My opinion is, a notebook is a constrained environment by definition. Extra 15% won’t magically turn it into a huge comfortable desktop. But at least you can enjoy that gorgeous screen and pixel-crisp fonts. Otherwise, why would you buy a retina screen at all?"

LOL

Has the author considered that maybe perhaps some people prefer more screen space and less "pixel crisp fonts"?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#918

Post by s9w »

cthalupa wrote: post #791
s9w wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean sure HDR is impressive, but for me it's always like 3D movies.. nice for 5 minutes and then you see the flaws. Dimming zones are a really crappy way to get around the fundamental display tech limitation like you said. But OLED has insane problems with burn-in. They officially don't exist but there are endless reports of this happening. Although I can't speak with high confidence about that. In general the majo…

> I mean sure HDR is impressive, but for me it's always like 3D movies.. nice for 5 minutes and then you see the flaws I mean, it basically "just works" on OLEDs. I've watched thousands of hours of HDR content now and maybe 2-3 hours of it was poorly done and distracting. vs. 3D, which I can never sit through at home. (Though, I don't mind well done 3D in the theater) >But OLED has insane problems with burn-in. They…

Ultimately what we really need is micro-led. But that seems to be difficult.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#919

Post by DJHenk »

gimboland wrote: post #914
thomaslord wrote: post #239

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…

> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. I haven't had this experience (MacOS, 4K monitor for 2.5 years) > 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plugging in a 1080p monitor. Also good luck having anyone's random spare monitor be 4k. shrug - 4K and 1080p seem to work together just fine for…

> > 3. Configuring my preferred linux environment to work with 4k is either impossible or just super time consuming.

> That's a statement about linux and i3, not monitors. (And again, I like i3, but stating this limitation as if it's a problem with monitors not i3 seems... odd.)

It is also wrong. I am a long time i3 user. Never had a problem with it, never done anything special. Most of the time I'm running Debian stable, so I even use software versions that most people consider 'old'.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#920

Post by the_af »

valuearb wrote: post #913
the_af wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "we weren't very productive"? People were plenty productive with the original Mac. I was plenty productive on PC XT clone with a tiny monochrome CRT monitor and an Hercules video card. (I wanted to say I was plenty productive with my C64, but that'd be stretching it :P ) What I want to fight is this notion that once tech N+1 arrives, then tech N must have been unproductive. That's demonstrably false,…

Productivity = work/time It’s indisputable that modern screens, tools, etc make developers more productive than smaller screens, slower CPUs did. I used to have 30 minute compile times. Was I “productive “? Sure, I guess, but 20 second compile times make me more productive. And being able to see over one hundred lines of code side by side with documentation makes me even more productive.

I agree better tools have the potential to make us more productive. I also think some nerd/hacker types tend to overrate the importance of their tools and gadgets, because this stuff serves as a proxy for actual talent and it's easier to show off and compare (These are not my words, someone else said it elsewhere in this thread, but once I read it, it really clicked with me).

It's one thing to say "I'm more productive with $GADGET". It's another, different thing to say "we weren't productive before $GADGET". I assure some of the old hackers, back in the days when they coded on a PDP-11 (or an Apple II, or whatever) where more productive than me and -- without knowing you -- I'm willing to bet they could be more productive than you. In my opinion the mindset that old tech wasn't "good enough", that leads people to claim "we weren't productive before" in absolute terms, is really pernicious and unhealthy.

Mind you, I'm not saying all gadgets are equal. Faster CPUs to me are obviously more useful than a larger screen. Both are nice, but one is more important than the other.

However, the most important peripheral, the one that makes the most impact on productivity: my brain. And I can't show it off as easily as a brand new macbook or whatever.

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